Article
Psychology
Anna Papafragou, Yue Ji
Summary: Logico-semantic theories have observed similarities between the linguistic representation of temporal and spatial entities. This study demonstrates parallels in the perceptual-cognitive representation of events and objects, even in non-linguistic tasks. The results show that viewers can extend categories of bounded or unbounded events to objects or substances, respectively, and spontaneously draw connections between events and objects without prior training.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Samuel Aguilar-Arguello, Ximena J. Nelson
Summary: The article reviews various hypotheses for the evolution of cognition in animals, focusing on the selective pressures exerted by sociality or ecological niches. It discusses why jumping spiders are excellent models for studying cognitive ability evolution due to their non-social nature, diverse habitats, and predatory behavior.
LEARNING & BEHAVIOR
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Darren J. Yeo, Courtney Pollack, Benjamin N. Conrad, Gavin R. Price
Summary: The processing of numerals as visual objects is supported by an Inferior Temporal Numeral Area (ITNA) in the bilateral inferior temporal gyri (ITG). Extant findings suggest some degree of hemispheric asymmetry in how the bilateral ITNAs process numerals. The study found that digit sensitivity did not differ between ITNAs, and digit sensitivity in both left and right ITNAs was associated with calculation skills. The study also revealed a right lateralization in engagement in alphanumeric categorization, and that the right ITNA showed greater discriminability between digits and letters.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Lilia Rissman, Gary Lupyan
Summary: The study investigates whether linguistic categories are structured similarly to categories used to conceptualize the world outside of language, focusing on the event roles Agent and Patient. Findings suggest that while Agent and Patient categories are robustly encoded in world languages and highly prominent conceptually, not all participants were able to access them easily for conscious reasoning. However, participants who did induce the categories generalized them in ways predicted by previous analyses of English syntax, supporting the view that Agent and Patient categories are domain-general across conceptual and linguistic representation.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Rosa Rugani, Maria Loconsole, Michael Koslowski, Lucia Regolin
Summary: This study found that young birds can enhance their proto-arithmetic performance and distinguish between three and four objects by gaining experience with different faces. In contrast, experience with identical copies of faces prevents birds from making the distinction. The importance of prior experience with at least one specific arrangement of facial features in individual processing and proto-arithmetic calculation is emphasized.
Article
History & Philosophy Of Science
Frauke Hildebrandt, Ramiro Glauer, Richard Moore
Summary: The current understanding of cognitive development is based on the assumption that infants can individuate objects early on. However, the object-first account fails to explain empirical findings in object individuation tasks, while alternative explanations exist. This paper proposes that children initially think in terms of features and cannot individuate objects, but they can learn this ability through spatial indexicals. The paper also critically discusses two accounts of object cognition that do not rely on symbolic capacities.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Josie Benitez, Rachel A. Leshin, Marjorie Rhodes
Summary: Generic descriptions of social categories lead children to develop essentialist beliefs, and the linguistic form plays a unique role in young children's development of essentialist beliefs.
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Mohammed Ayoub Alaoui Mhamdi, Djemel Ziou
Summary: This paper presents a critical points based descriptor for 3 D objects recognition, utilizing a size function to represent critical points and the links between them, and a metric learning method to deal with partial matching problems. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs well in 3 D object recognition.
PATTERN RECOGNITION
(2021)
Article
Linguistics
Frauke Hildebrandt, Ramiro Glauer, Gregor Kachel
Summary: Research suggests that even very young children can perceive objects as particulars, but these results can be explained in terms of feature discrimination, with children initially navigating the world with a feature-based ontology. Object individuation is a cognitively demanding achievement that relies on the unique human form of enculturation, the acquisition of deictic demonstratives.
Article
History & Philosophy Of Science
Ramiro Glauer, Frauke Hildebrandt
Summary: This article critically reassesses Quine's account of reference, arguing that he presupposes what he sets out to explain, namely, reference to objects. The article highlights the necessity for any theory of reference to explain spatiotemporal object individuation.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Jeske Toorman
Summary: Recent research shows that people do not categorize natural kinds solely based on scientific essence. Two explanations have been proposed, suggesting that participants in these studies reason diagnostically. However, these explanations may not fully account for the data.
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Rachel A. Leshin, Ryan F. Lei, Magnolia Byrne, Marjorie Rhodes
Summary: Race influences how children think about gender, with biases towards Black women being less typical of their gender. However, children with more flexible racial identities are more inclusive of Black women in their gender concepts, highlighting the complex interplay between race and gender biases in childhood development.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Gaixia Fan, Yuetan Wang, Yonglei Yue, Jin Lei, Peng Zhang, Xiaobin Ding
Summary: The study found that individuals' perceptions of the social status of other-race faces have an impact on the other-race effect. When individuals perceive other-race faces to have higher social status, their recognition scores for these faces increase and the other-race effect disappears. However, when individuals perceive other-race faces to have lower social status, there is no significant difference in their recognition scores for these faces.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Abdulaziz Abubshait, Patrick P. Weis, Ali Momen, Eva Wiese
Summary: When interacting with a group of robots, people tend to perceive them as a homogeneous group with similar capabilities, which is potentially due to a lack of perceptual experience with robots or a lack of motivation to see them as individuals. Designing robots that can be individuated based on their actual skills can help overcome this issue and improve trust and performance in human-robot teams.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Joffrey Fuhrer, Florian Cova, Nicolas Gauvrit, Sebastian Dieguez
Summary: The paper explores the nature and mechanisms of pseudoexpertise, providing a definition to capture real-world cases and distinguish it from related concepts. A framework for further research on pseudoexpertise is proposed, along with exploratory answers to questions about the existence and success of pseudoexperts. Overall, the conceptual and theoretical approaches establish a preliminary framework for addressing the problem of pseudoexperts usurping genuine experts.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Hannes Rakoczy, Nadja Miosga, Thomas Schultze
Summary: The study shows that children as young as 4 years old are able to evaluate the quality of arguments based on context and engage in selective learning and belief-revision accordingly.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
(2022)
Article
Zoology
Carla Sebastian-Enesco, Nerea Amezcua-Valmala, Fernando Colmenares, Natacha Mendes, Josep Call
Summary: Chimpanzees and orangutans have the ability to generate innovative behaviors to solve complicated physical problems, such as the floating peanut task. Recent research suggests that they may potentially solve such tasks without relying on sensorimotor learning, but rather by mentally representing the problem.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Hanna Marno, Christoph J. Volter, Brandon Tinklenberg, Dan Sperber, Josep Call
Summary: When human infants are addressed intentionally, they interpret the information as relevant and valuable. Similarly, great apes are sensitive to communicative cues, but in this study, they failed to prioritize efficiency when the ineffective method was demonstrated in a communicative way. This suggests that the communicative demonstration elicited an expectation of relevance and modified apes' interpretation of the situation.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Elizabeth Warren, Josep Call
Summary: Communication, defined as an act intended to affect another individual's psychological state, requires the use of inference. Research into animal communication has struggled to explain the mental cognitive mechanisms involved. This paper presents a new theoretical perspective called inferential communication, which bridges the gap between less cognitive descriptions of animal communication and mentalistic interpretations of human language. It proposes that non-human primates may apply social inferences to their communicative behavior, enabling complex and flexible communication systems.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Zoology
Emma S. McEwen, Elizabeth Warren, Sadie Tenpas, Benjamin Jones, Kresimir Durdevic, Emilie Rapport Munro, Josep Call
Summary: Primate cognition research relies on access to research subjects and facilities, and zoos, as research sites, hold potential advantages in terms of species diversity and research topic diversity. They also provide easier access to a wider range of subjects compared to field sites.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Christoph J. Voelter, Brandon Tinklenberg, Josep Call, Amanda M. Seed
Summary: This study investigated the relative contribution of inhibitory control to performance in inhibition tasks compared to learning or object knowledge. The experiments revealed that chimpanzees learned more quickly by avoiding objects that elicited a prepotent approach response, such as transparent cups containing food. They also learned more quickly in color discrimination tasks when the incorrect cups were sealed so that no food could be hidden inside. Moreover, in a task where visible food cues were congruent or incongruent with the reward, the chimpanzees learned more quickly in the congruent condition.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Zoology
Adrian Soldati, Geresomu Muhumuza, Guillaume Dezecache, Pawel Fedurek, Derry Taylor, Josep Call, Klaus Zuberbuhler
Summary: This study reports direct observations of the birth of a wild chimpanzee in Budongo Forest, Uganda. The researchers found that chimpanzees have the ability to produce vocal sequences composed of different call types from birth, albeit in rudimentary forms.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Matthias Allritz, Josep Call, Ken Schweller, Emma S. McEwen, Miguel de Guinea, Karline R. L. Janmaat, Charles R. Menzel, Francine L. Dolins
Summary: This study presented a seminaturalistic virtual environment to six chimpanzees, showing their spatial cognition abilities and the potential of virtual environments for primate research. The chimpanzees exhibited behaviors similar to real-life navigation, indicating the high ecological validity of virtual environments for testing. Virtual environments can provide standardized testing with higher ecological validity than traditional tests in captivity.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Manon K. Schweinfurth, Dylan B. Baldridge, Kyle Finnerty, Josep Call, Gunther K. Knoblich
Summary: Humans, like many other animals, live in groups and coordinate actions with others in social settings. Chimpanzees also spontaneously synchronize their actions with conspecifics while walking together, and this coordination is influenced by social relationships within the group.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Daniel Hanus, Valentina Truppa, Josep Call
Summary: The susceptibility to visual illusions in humans may reflect specific functional adaptations of our perceptual system. Cross-cultural differences in the perception of geometric illusions support this explanation. However, little is known about the developmental trajectories of these adaptations in humans, as well as the susceptibility to illusions in other primate species.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Educational
Jan M. Engelmann, Lou M. Haux, Christoph Voelter, Hanna Schleihauf, Josep Call, Hannes Rakoczy, Esther Herrmann
Summary: Psychologists disagree on the development of logical concepts in infants. This study conducted five experiments on logical reasoning in chimpanzees and found that they exhibited some level of logical reasoning ability in certain tasks but not in others. The results are most consistent with non-deductive explanations.
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Eva Reindl, Christoph Johannes Volter, Jessica Campbell-May, Josep Call, Amanda Madeleine Seed
Summary: Attentional set shifting is crucial in cognitive development, but studying it in early childhood has been limited by the lack of nonverbal measures. This article introduces a new nonverbal version of the Intradimensional/Extradimensional (ID/ED) shift task to investigate attentional set shifting and its impact on children's cognitive development.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biology
E. Reindl, C. J. Volter, Z. Civelek, L. Duncan, Z. Lugosi, E. Felsche, E. Herrmann, J. Call, A. M. Seed
Summary: This study compared the performance of 3-5-year-old children and chimpanzees on an attentional set shifting task. The results showed that chimpanzees and 3-4-year-old children performed similarly on this task, while 5-year-old children performed better. This suggests that chimpanzees and children share similar attentional set shifting capacities, but there are unique changes in humans at the age of 5.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Jose Zamorano-Abramson, Ma Victoria Hernandez-Lloreda, Fernando Colmenares, Josep Call
Summary: Research shows that orcas are capable of flexible social learning, as they are able to imitate observed actions even after a delay, indicating cognitive control.
Article
Biology
Jan M. Engelmann, Christoph J. Voelter, Mariel K. Goddu, Josep Call, Hannes Rakoczy, Esther Herrmann
Summary: When facing uncertainty, humans often build mental models of alternative outcomes. Considering diverging scenarios allows agents to respond adaptively to different actual worlds by developing contingency plans. In a pre-registered experiment, researchers tested whether chimpanzees prepare for two mutually exclusive possibilities. The results showed that chimpanzees were more likely to protect both pieces of food in the second condition, indicating their ability to represent and prepare for different possible worlds.