Overcoming cognitive set bias requires more than seeing an alternative strategy.

Determining when to switch from one strategy to another is at the heart of adaptive decision-making. Previous research shows that humans exhibit a 'cognitive set' bias, which occurs when a familiar strategy occludes-even much better-alternatives. Here we examined the mechanisms underlying cognitive set by investigating whether better solutions are visually overlooked, or fixated on but disregarded.

Nonhuman primates learn adjacent dependencies but fail to learn nonadjacent dependencies in a statistical learning task with a salient cue.

There is ample evidence that humans and nonhuman animals can learn complex statistical regularities presented within various types of input. However, humans outperform their nonhuman primate counterparts when it comes to recognizing relationships that exist across one or several intervening stimuli (nonadjacent dependencies). This is especially true when the two elements in the dependency do not share any perceptual similarity (arbitrary associations).

Martha Helson Wilson (1929-2020).

Memorializes Martha Helson Wilson (1929-2020), a physiological psychologist. Martha enrolled at Yale University for doctoral study in 1952, where she studied the physiological aspects of sensation with Burton Rosner. She also developed skills in electrophysiology under the direction of Karl Pribram, who became her career-long mentor, collaborator, and friend.

Strategy use in probabilistic categorization by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus [Sapajus] apella).

Probabilistic categorization tasks present the learner with a set of possible responses and imperfect cue evidence of which response will be rewarded. A single, optimal integration of all available cues into an optimal response is possible given any set of evidence. In contrast, there are many possible uses of the cues that offer the learner suboptimal (but better than chance) responding.

Breaking the link: Distraction from emotional cues reduces the association between trait disinhibition and reactive physical aggression.

Research has implicated biased attention allocation toward emotional cues as a proximal mechanism in the association between trait disinhibition and physical aggression. The current study tested this putative cognitive mechanism by incentivizing a shift of attention from a provoking stimulus to a neutral stimulus during a laboratory aggression paradigm. Participants were 119 undergraduate men.

Duane M. Rumbaugh (1929-2017).

Presents an obituary of Duane M. Rumbaugh (1929-2017). Rumbaugh was an experimental psychologist known for his many contributions toward understanding primate learning and behavior.

Simians in the Shape School: A comparative study of executive attention.

Executive functions (EF) have been studied extensively in children and adults. However, EF tasks for young children can be difficult to administer and interpret. Espy (1997, Developmental Neuropsychology, 13, 495-499) designed the Shape School task to measure inhibition and switching in preschool-aged children.

A computerized testing system for primates: Cognition, welfare, and the Rumbaughx.

Innovations in apparatus technology come about for a variety of reasons such as the need to use the same methodology with various species, the opportunity to present dynamic and carefully controlled stimuli, the goal of using automation to make data collection more precise or efficient, and the need to control for and/or eliminate the presence of experimenters in the testing context. At the Language Research Center (LRC) of Georgia State University, a computer-based system has been developed and used extensively with nonhuman primate species. This system involves the animal working in an enclosure that provides visual access to a computer screen, access to a joystick to control a cursor on the screen, and access to a food dish where pellets are delivered for correct responses.

Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) remember agency information from past events and integrate this knowledge with spatial and temporal features in working memory.

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether rhesus monkeys remember information about their own agency-along with spatial, temporal and contextual properties-from a previously experienced event. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys (n = 4) used symbols to reliably indicate whether they had performed or observed an event on a computer screen. In Experiment 2, naïve and experienced monkeys (n = 8) reported agency information when stringent controls for perceptual and proprioceptive cues were included.

The effects of prayer on attention resource availability and attention bias.

Two experiments were used to measure the effects of prayer, contemplation, or a control activity on attention resource capacity and attention bias. Results from a dual-task test in Experiment 1 indicated that allowing participants to pray about an issue in their lives improved subsequent task performance, but only for individuals who score highly on a measure of religiosity. Experiment 2 suggested that praying about a problem can bias attention in a word-search task.

Bramlett-Parker, J.; Washburn, D.A. Can Rhesus Monkey Learn Executive Attention? Behav. Sci. 2016, 6, 11.

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Can Rhesus Monkey Learn Executive Attention?

A growing body of data indicates that, compared to humans, rhesus monkeys perform poorly on tasks that assess executive attention, or voluntary control over selection for processing, particularly under circumstances in which attention is attracted elsewhere by competing stimulus control. In the human-cognition literature, there are hotly active debates about whether various competencies such as executive attention, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence can be improved through training. In the current study, rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) completed an attention-training intervention including several inhibitory-control tasks (a Simon task, numerical Stroop task, global/local interference task, and a continuous performance task) to determine whether generalized improvements would be observed on a version of the Attention Network Test (ANT) of controlled attention, which was administered before and after the training intervention.

Primate cognition: attention, episodic memory, prospective memory, self-control, and metacognition as examples of cognitive control in nonhuman primates.

Primate Cognition is the study of cognitive processes, which represent internal mental processes involved in discriminations, decisions, and behaviors of humans and other primate species. Cognitive control involves executive and regulatory processes that allocate attention, manipulate and evaluate available information (and, when necessary, seek additional information), remember past experiences to plan future behaviors, and deal with distraction and impulsivity when they are threats to goal achievement. Areas of research that relate to cognitive control as it is assessed across species include executive attention, episodic memory, prospective memory, metacognition, and self-control.

The Stroop effect at 80: The competition between stimulus control and cognitive control.

For more than 80 years, researchers have examined the interference between automatic processing of stimuli, such as the meaning of color words, on performance of a controlled-processing task such as naming the color in which words are printed. The Stroop effect and its many variations provide an ideal test platform for examining the competition between stimulus control and cognitive control of attention, as reflected in behavior. The two experiments reported here show that rhesus monkeys, like human adults, show interference from incongruous stimulus conditions in a number-Stroop task, and that the monkeys may be particularly susceptible to influence from response strength and less able, relative to human adults, of using executive attention to minimize this interference.

Judgments of Monkey's (Macaca mulatta) Facial Expressions by Humans: Does Housing Condition "Affect" Countenance?

The ability to interpret facial expressions of others is one of the more important abilities possessed by humans. However, is it possible for humans to accurately interpret the facial expressions of another species of primate, namely rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)? We investigated this possibility by taking digital photos of four rhesus monkeys housed either singly or socially and allowing thirty-one participants to judge these photographs as representing either a happy, sad, or neutral monkey. Results indicated that the photographs of monkeys that were socially housed were more likely to be rated as happy or neutral than were photographs of singly housed monkeys.

Comparative Cognition: Past, Present, and Future.

Comparative cognition is the field of inquiry concerned with understanding the cognitive abilities and mechanisms that are evident in nonhuman species. Assessments of animal cognition have a long history, but in recent years there has been an explosion of new research topics, and a general broadening of the phylogenetic map of animal cognition. To review the past of comparative cognition, we describe the historical trends.

Do monkeys choose to choose?

Both empirical and anecdotal evidence supports the idea that choice is preferred by humans. Previous research has demonstrated that this preference extends to nonhuman animals, but it remains largely unknown whether animals will actively seek out or prefer opportunities to choose. Here we explored the issue of whether capuchin and rhesus monkeys choose to choose.

Analogical reasoning and the differential outcome effect: transitory bridging of the conceptual gap for rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

Monkeys, unlike chimpanzees and humans, have a marked difficulty acquiring relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks that likely reflect the cognitive foundation upon which analogical reasoning rests. In the present study, rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) completed a categorical (identity and nonidentity) RMTS task with differential reward (pellet ratio) and/or punishment (timeout ratio) outcomes for correct and incorrect choices. Monkeys in either differential reward-only or punishment-only conditions performed at chance levels.

Task engagement, cerebral blood flow velocity, and diagnostic monitoring for sustained attention.

Loss of vigilance may lead to impaired performance in various applied settings including military operations, transportation, and industrial inspection. Individuals differ considerably in sustained attention, but individual differences in vigilance have proven to be hard to predict. The dependence of vigilance on workload factors is consistent with a resource model of sustained attention.

What do Arabic numerals mean to macaques (Macaca mulatta)?

In the past, rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) have demonstrated an ability to use Arabic numerals to facilitate performance in a variety of tasks. However, it remained unclear whether they understood the absolute and relative values of numerals. In Experiment 1, numeral-trained macaques picked the larger stimuli when presented with pairwise comparisons involving numerals and analog quantities.

With his memory magnetically erased, a monkey knows he is uncertain.

Although intelligence is associated with what one knows, it is also important to recognize and to respond adaptively when one is uncertain. This competency has been examined developmentally and comparatively, but it is difficult to distinguish between objective versus subjective cues to which organisms may respond. In this study, transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to disrupt cognitive processing by a rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) in a computerized divided visual field memory task.

A transcranial Doppler sonography study of shoot/don't-shoot responding.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between changes in cerebral blood-flow velocity and performance on a speeded shoot/don't-shoot task. Brain activity as indicated by cerebral blood-flow velocity (hemovelocity) was recorded using the transcranial Doppler ultrasonography. A shoot/don't-shoot decision-making task presented participants with threat/nonthreat stimuli in the form of bull's-eye images of various colors.

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.

Memory for "what", "where", and "when" information in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

The present study examined working memory for what, where, and when information in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) using a computerized task. In Experiment 1, monkeys completed three delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) tasks: (1) identity DMTS, (2) spatial DMTS, and (3) temporal DMTS. In Experiment 2, the identity and spatial tasks were combined so that monkeys had to report both what and where information about an event.

What meaning means for same and different: Analogical reasoning in humans (Homo sapiens), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

Thus far, language- and token-trained apes (e.g., D.