Michele M Mulholland, Will Whitham, Michael Berkey, Lisa M Pytka, Peter Pierre, William D Hopkins
{"title":"Implementation of automated cognitive testing systems for socially housed rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and squirrel (Saimiri spp.) monkeys: Age differences in learning.","authors":"Michele M Mulholland, Will Whitham, Michael Berkey, Lisa M Pytka, Peter Pierre, William D Hopkins","doi":"10.1037/com0000391","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000391","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Utilizing Automated Cognitive Testing Systems (ACTS) with group-housed nonhuman primates offers a number of advantages over manual testing and computerized testing of singly housed subjects. To date, ACTS usage has been limited to great apes or African monkeys. Here, we detail what we have learned while implementing ACTS with socially housed squirrel monkeys and rhesus macaques and provide information about the training process. In addition, we examined the effects of age on learning acquisition. We found age differences in learning for both squirrel monkeys and rhesus monkeys. Older monkeys were not as proficient as younger monkeys on learning to use the touch screens (squirrel monkeys only), discrimination learning (rhesus monkeys only; note: squirrel monkeys were not trained to criterion on this task), and recognition learning (both species). Overall, ACTS provide a number of advantages for studying cognition in socially living nonhuman primates and can be used to further investigate cognitive decline whether related to natural aging processes or disease pathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"124-133"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11890186/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142301303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bonnie Humphrey, Michelle Glass, Jonathan Hill, Amy J Osborne, Daniel B Stouffer, Alexandra Noble, William S Helton, Shuli Chen, Ximena J Nelson
{"title":"The effect of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol and methamphetamine on sustained attention in the jumping spider (Trite planiceps).","authors":"Bonnie Humphrey, Michelle Glass, Jonathan Hill, Amy J Osborne, Daniel B Stouffer, Alexandra Noble, William S Helton, Shuli Chen, Ximena J Nelson","doi":"10.1037/com0000396","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000396","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Decreasing responsiveness to repeated visual stimuli (i.e., the inability to sustain attention) in jumping spiders (Salticidae) parallels that found in humans. In humans, drugs affect vigilance, and previous work on salticids has shown that the \"vigilance decrement\" is unlikely to be sensory habituation and that caffeine ameliorates reductions in attention. We exposed <i>Trite planiceps</i> to delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and methamphetamine before presenting them with a repeated visual stimulus. In the THC experiment, spiders were given a THC solution, water, or a vehicle solution, using a within-subjects design. The orienting response (i.e., \"interest\") of salticids on a track ball to face a fly stimulus presented peripherally on a monitor was scored, as well as \"general movement\" (e.g., walking, as a control for physical fatigue) and \"no movement.\" The methamphetamine experiment was identical except that salticids were given methamphetamine solution or water. In both the THC and methamphetamine treatments, general movement dropped over time, while in control treatments, this was constant. Additionally, due to an initial stimulating effect of methamphetamine on interest, the response decrement was significantly steeper when spiders were administered methamphetamine compared with water. Our results suggest that the modulation of sustained attention, and possibly motivation, is likely in salticids. basic local alignment search tool genome queries on a closely related species and pharmacological radioligand experiments suggested that salticids do not possess cannabinoid receptors, but the presence of transient receptor potential proteins may help explain the small behavioral changes observed with THC. In contrast, how methamphetamine affects salticids remains unknown. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"134-146"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142820378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Erin N Colbert-White, Devin C Anderson, Matthew Q Maus
{"title":"Positive intonation increases the perceived value of smaller rewards in a quantity discrimination task with dogs (Canis familiaris).","authors":"Erin N Colbert-White, Devin C Anderson, Matthew Q Maus","doi":"10.1037/com0000392","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000392","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Like many other species, dogs have a natural quantity judgment system to assist with decision making to maximize resources. Additionally, dogs are highly sensitive to, and influenced by, human-delivered ostensive (i.e., social) cues. Here, we assessed the influence of one such cue-a high, rising, positive \"Oooh!\" sound-on dogs' choice of differing quantities of pieces of food presented on two different plates. Subjects (<i>N</i> = 29) received 16 randomized trials of four conditions: 1 versus 1 paired with experimenter \"Oooh!\" while looking at the one plate, 1 versus 3, 3 versus 1 paired with experimenter \"Oooh!,\" and 1 versus 1. As predicted, dogs chose the larger quantity more often in 1 versus 3 conditions. Contrary to one of our predictions, subjects chose the 1 versus 1+ \"Oooh!\" at chance levels. However, in support of another prediction, pairing the smaller reward with a positive intonation in 3 versus 1+ \"Oooh!\" significantly reduced dogs' choice of the larger reward. That is to say, without the presence of words, eye contact, or facial expressions, dogs followed a misguiding cue and chose a smaller reward that a stranger had deemed more valuable than a larger one. Local enhancement as well as a drive to increase social capital with the human are discussed as possible explanations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"18-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142301304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pigeons' (Columba livia) intertemporal choice in binary-choice and patch-leaving contexts.","authors":"Stephanie Gomes-Ng, Quinn Gray, Sarah Cowie","doi":"10.1037/com0000387","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000387","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Typical approaches to study self-control present subjects with a simultaneous choice between a larger-later (LL) reinforcer and a smaller-sooner (SS) reinforcer. In contrast, in patch-leaving tasks, subjects choose between staying at a patch for an SS (or LL) reinforcer and leaving for an LL (or SS) reinforcer. Previous studies show that blue jays, monkeys, humans, and rats prefer the SS reinforcer in binary-choice tasks, whereas the same subjects prefer the LL reinforcer in equivalent patch-leaving tasks. The current study systematically replicated this research using pigeons. Six pigeons responded in a binary-choice task and in two patch-leaving tasks in which staying led to an LL (Patch-L) or SS (Patch-S) reinforcer. Across conditions, the SS reinforcer delay varied from 5 to 55 s; the LL reinforcer delay was always 60 s. In binary-choice conditions, subjects preferred the SS reinforcer. In Patch-L and Patch-S conditions, subjects preferred the LL and SS reinforcer, respectively, reflecting a bias to stay at the patch. This bias persisted when the stay response was more effortful and when the delays to both reinforcers were equal. This may reflect a species-specific win-stay bias and the differential consequences of staying (which led to a stimulus signaling food) versus leaving (which led to a stimulus never associated with food). Thus, we propose a conditioned-reinforcement account of intertemporal choice in patch-leaving contexts. We suggest several avenues for further investigations of the mechanisms underlying intertemporal choice in different contexts and question the economic equivalence of the operant and patch-leaving procedures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"26-41"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142019609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Melodic and harmonic chromatic interval processing by pigeons (Columba livia).","authors":"Robert G Cook","doi":"10.1037/com0000388","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000388","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Music is a ubiquitous feature of human behavior. Yet the origins of human musicality remain poorly understood. One attractive approach has investigated the distribution and components of musicality among nonhuman animals. Here I tested four highly trained pigeons in three experiments for their capacity to discriminate the intervals of the chromatic scale. Using an auditory go/no-go same/different task, the pigeons discriminated intervals spanning different numbers of semitones on each trial as synthesized with two musical instruments (cello and organ). Experiment 1 examined this discrimination using a successive melodic context, while Experiment 2 used a simultaneous harmonic context. Experiment 3 tested pure tones in both contexts. The pigeons were sensitive to the distance among the pitch intervals, but examination of specific diagnostic intervals revealed little evidence for any contribution of human-like musical consonance (perfect fifth and octave) and dissonance (tritone and major seventh) to the discrimination. Although more accomplished in the auditory modality than widely assumed, the current state of the evidence suggests pigeons, while sensitive to the pitched nature of sound, lack essential capacities needed for music perception. The evolutionary implications for the comparative psychology of music are considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":"139 1","pages":"42-54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143494956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zoe Johnson-Ulrich, Eric Hoffmaster, Audrey Robeson, Jennifer Vonk
{"title":"Form over function: Striped skunks (mephitis mephitis) learn arbitrary visual patterns to solve the slat-pulling task.","authors":"Zoe Johnson-Ulrich, Eric Hoffmaster, Audrey Robeson, Jennifer Vonk","doi":"10.1037/com0000384","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000384","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Striped skunks are omnivorous generalists with patchily distributed food-two selection pressures that are purported to drive the evolution of cognition. Despite this, the cognitive abilities of skunks have rarely been tested. Using the slat-pulling task, we assessed the ability of three striped skunks to reason about the visual patterns of support when two slats were presented (one supporting a food item). We used both functional slats (real wooden slats that gave subjects both visual and functional information when manipulated) and purely representational slats in an arbitrary version of the task (painted lines that provided only visual information). All three skunks found the arbitrary task difficult to learn but nevertheless learned to solve it after thousands of trials. They appeared to respond to visual patterns of contact and perceptual containment between food and painted lines to solve several configurations of the task. Interestingly, only one of three skunks learned to pull supportive over unsupportive slats (despite the addition of functional information). This subject had first learned the visual pattern associated with reward in the arbitrary version, thus showing the transfer of visual patterns from the arbitrary to the functional task. Overall, striped skunks demonstrated the ability to use visual patterns to solve problems despite their relatively poor vision and difficulty in learning the tasks. These findings provide further support for the idea that slat-pulling tasks can be solved by visual pattern learning alone and that this possibility needs to be controlled for in tasks assessing abstract causal reasoning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":"139 1","pages":"55-68"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143494954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lyn Caldicott, Thomas W Pike, Helen E Zulch, Victoria F Ratcliffe, Anna Wilkinson
{"title":"The impact of training method on odor learning and generalization in dogs (Canis lupus familiaris).","authors":"Lyn Caldicott, Thomas W Pike, Helen E Zulch, Victoria F Ratcliffe, Anna Wilkinson","doi":"10.1037/com0000390","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000390","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Detection dogs are required to learn and alert to multiple different odors during training and to generalize this learning to similar odors when working. They should be both sensitive to variation in the target odors and specific enough to avoid false alerts, but how readily they achieve this is likely to depend on the training method employed. The majority of agencies train by presenting single target odors in isolation, and adding additional odors consecutively, although recent research with rats suggests intermixing the target odors concurrently throughout training may be a more effective approach. This study therefore tested the relative efficacy of intermixed training in dogs. Using an odor-detection lineup, pet dogs were trained to detect two target odors, A and B. Those allocated to the \"sequential\" group were trained to criterion on odor A and then trained on odor B (or vice versa), the \"compound\" group were trained on a mixture of AB, and the \"intermixed\" group trained on A and B concurrently. Each dog was then tested on all combinations of the test stimuli (A, B, and AB), as well as combinations containing a novel interferent (AC, BC, and ABC). Results revealed that dogs trained by the intermixed method made significantly more correct (true positive) indications, and significantly fewer miss (false negative) indications than the other two methods, suggesting that intermixed training is more effective than currently used alternative training methods. Thus, for improved performance and generalization, we recommend detection dog training should use an intermixed method of training. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"3-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142481298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Noah Steckley, Amber Thatcher, Susan M Greene, Heather Warner, Kendra Kuehn, Nathan Insel
{"title":"Together again but no need to play: Dissociating effects of isolation and separation on social interaction in female rats (Rattus norvegicus).","authors":"Noah Steckley, Amber Thatcher, Susan M Greene, Heather Warner, Kendra Kuehn, Nathan Insel","doi":"10.1037/com0000382","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000382","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Play behavior has been extensively studied across species, but its direct role in social relationships remains unclear. Here we use an \"isolation versus separation\" protocol to identify behaviors associated with relationship renewal in adolescent female rats. Members of a dyad that had been separated for 24 hr, without isolation from other peers, initially increased investigative behaviors relative to nonseparated peers; however, in contrast with social isolation, separation by itself did not increase rough-and-tumble play. The data suggest that increased play following isolation depends on general motivations, rather than a \"peer-specific\" drive to renew relationships with an individual. This is consistent with a role of play in more general social learning rather than reestablishing bonds or expectations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"13-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142301307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"One smell, two smells, intermixed, combined, or queued smells: What training procedure promotes the best generalization of odor detection by dogs?","authors":"Michael J Beran","doi":"10.1037/com0000413","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000413","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Drugs, bomb materials, fruits, and even medical conditions such as cancer are all stimuli that a dog's nose can be trained to detect, and the dog then can report reliable information about those stimuli in terms of presence or absence. This essay discusses the tremendous effort that goes into training expert detection dogs, highlighting different ways of instantiate training. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":"139 1","pages":"1-2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143494959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Patricia Gasalla, Jaime Figueroa, Michael R Waldmann, Dominic M Dwyer
{"title":"Beyond the information (not) given: Associative mechanisms versus representations of uncertainty in extinction in laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus).","authors":"Patricia Gasalla, Jaime Figueroa, Michael R Waldmann, Dominic M Dwyer","doi":"10.1037/com0000380","DOIUrl":"10.1037/com0000380","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Associative learning models typically reflect statistical relationships between experienced events. Causal models can go beyond this information to specify the ways in which events are related. This meta-representational aspect of causal models allows them to reflect uncertainty about relationships between events: for example, if a light initially leads to sucrose but subsequently the light is experienced without sucrose, this might first support formation of a light-causes-sucrose model and subsequently lead to uncertainty over whether the model remained accurate. Prior studies of Pavlovian conditioning in rats manipulated sucrose-magazine access during extinction to produce uncertainty about reward presence or absence. Rats were sensitive to covering of the site of reward delivery, which was interpreted as evidence for a causal-model account reflecting uncertainty. However, associative accounts-based on the direct impact of the dipper mechanism used to deliver sucrose through secondary reinforcement or contextual renewal of responding-can also explain the results. In two new experiments, manipulation of the dipper mechanism through extinction and test phases resulted in behavior consistent with these associative accounts. However, demonstration of the importance of the sucrose dipper suggests that the reward delivery mechanism should be included in a causal model. Such a revised causal model also provides an account of the impact of manipulating the sucrose dipper. While these experiments do not conclusively decide between associative and causal models as explanations of rodent behavior, they do illustrate the value of incremental experimental study and the importance of methodological detail in addressing questions of comparative cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":54861,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Comparative Psychology","volume":" ","pages":"69-79"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142632957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}