Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) adaptively monitor uncertainty while multi-tasking.
As researchers explore animals' capacity for metacognition and uncertainty monitoring, some paradigms allow the criticism that animal participants-who are always extensively trained in one stimulus domain within which they learn to avoid difficult trials-use task-specific strategies to avoid aversive stimuli instead of responding to a generalized state of uncertainty like that humans might use. We addressed this criticism with an uncertainty-monitoring task environment in which four different task domains were interleaved randomly trial by trial. Four of five macaques (Macaca mulatta) were able to make adaptive uncertainty responses while multi-tasking, suggesting the generality of the psychological signal that occasions these responses. The findings suggest that monkeys may have an uncertainty-monitoring capacity that is like that of humans in transcending task-specific cues and extending simultaneously to multiple domains.
Smith
J David
JD
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA. psysmith@buffalo.edu
Redford
Joshua S
JS
Beran
Michael J
MJ
Washburn
David A
DA
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D035501:Uncertainty