COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF CATEGORY LEARNING BY HUMANS AND NON HUMAN PRIMATES

描述（由申请人提供）：类别学习是人类的基本认知功能 和非人类动物，并在人类和动物研究的一个尖锐的焦点。拟议的研究将以几种方式整合这两种研究传统。本研究的主要目的是：1）建立一个比较人类和动物类别学习的实验平台; 2）利用人类范式推进非人灵长类动物类别化的样例过程和原型形成研究; 3）寻找人类和灵长类动物类别学习之间的不连续性; 4）寻找灵长类动物类别学习的限制条件; 5）运用人类的分离范式，探讨灵长类动物是否具有类似于人类的外显和内隐分类系统的可区分分类学习系统; 6）评价猴子缺乏人类外显分类系统的组织假说; 7）根据人类和动物研究结果的总体模式，完善关于言语化和外显认知在分类中的作用的假设;促进比较研究者与范畴认知神经科学研究者之间的对话 学习具有不同系统发育的可分离类别学习系统的可能性 分布对比较心理学和认知心理学以及灵长类心智进化理论都有影响。对可分离学习系统的研究也有助于发展心理学和认知神经科学，因为不同的系统可能在不同的年龄表现突出，或者在帕金森病、阿尔茨海默病、抑郁症、精神分裂症和健忘症等临床疾病中相对受损/保留。此外，通过仔细比较人类和动物的分类能力/局限性，人们可能会通过将这些与被认为服务于类别学习的大脑系统的差异发展相关联来推进神经科学理论。研究还可以提出培训方案，通过利用保存的能力，促进特别是儿童或成人的学习。这项研究还涉及语言在类别学习和问题解决中的作用，对语言障碍儿童这些能力的可能限制，以及可能的内隐补偿方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Category learning is a basic cognitive function for humans and non-human animals and a sharp focus in human and animal research. The proposed research would integrate these two research traditions in several ways. It would 1) create an experimental platform that lets human and animal category learning be closely compared; 2) advance the study of exemplar processes and prototype formation in nonhuman primates' categorization using selected human paradigms; 3) search for (dis)continuities between human and primate category learning; 4) search, in particular, for constraints on primate category learning; 5) ask, using human dissociative paradigms, whether primates have differentiable category learning systems analogous to those called explicit and implicit in humans; 6) evaluate the organizing hypothesis that monkeys somewhat lack humans' explicit categorization system; 7) refine, based on the overall pattern of human and animal findings, hypotheses about the role of verbalization and explicit cognition in categorization; and 8) foster a dialog between comparative researchers and researchers of the cognitive neuroscience of category learning. The possibility of dissociable category-learning systems with different phylogenetic distributions has implications for comparative and cognitive psychology and for theories of the evolution of the primate mind. Research on dissociable learning systems could also contribute to developmental psychology and cognitive neurosicence because different systems could be pre-eminent at different ages or relatively impaired/preserved in clinical conditions like Parkinson s disease, Alzheimer's disease, depression, schizophrenia, and the amnesic syndromes. Moreover, by carefully comparing humans' and animals' categorization competencies/limitations one might advance theory in neuroscience by correlating these with the differential development of the brain systems thought to serve category learning. The research could also suggest training regimens that would foster greater learning in particular child or adult populations by capitalizing on preserved capacities. The research also bears on the role of language in category learning and problem solving, on possible limits on these capacities in children with language disorders, and on possible implicit compensatory approaches.