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Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear

Cognitive bias tests are frequently used to assess affective state in nonhumans. We adapted the ambiguous-cue paradigm to assess affective states and to compare learning of reward associations in two distantly related species, an American black bear and three Western lowland gorillas. Subjects were...

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Autores principales: McGuire, Molly C., Vonk, Jennifer, Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5618059/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28792447
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs7030051
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author McGuire, Molly C.
Vonk, Jennifer
Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe
author_facet McGuire, Molly C.
Vonk, Jennifer
Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe
author_sort McGuire, Molly C.
collection PubMed
description Cognitive bias tests are frequently used to assess affective state in nonhumans. We adapted the ambiguous-cue paradigm to assess affective states and to compare learning of reward associations in two distantly related species, an American black bear and three Western lowland gorillas. Subjects were presented with three training stimuli: one that was always rewarded (P), one that was never rewarded (N) and one that was ambiguous (A) because its reward association depended on whether it had been paired with P (PA pairing) or N (NA pairing). Differential learning of NA and PA pairs provided insight into affective state as the bear and one gorilla learned NA pairs more readily, indicating that they focused on cues of reinforcement more than cues of non-reinforcement, whereas the opposite was true of one gorilla. A third gorilla did not learn either pairings at above chance levels. Although all subjects experienced difficulty learning the pairings, we were able to assess responses to A during probe trials in the bear and one gorilla. Both responded optimistically, but it was difficult to determine whether their responses were a true reflection of affective state or were due to preferences for specific stimuli.
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spelling pubmed-56180592017-09-29 Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear McGuire, Molly C. Vonk, Jennifer Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe Behav Sci (Basel) Article Cognitive bias tests are frequently used to assess affective state in nonhumans. We adapted the ambiguous-cue paradigm to assess affective states and to compare learning of reward associations in two distantly related species, an American black bear and three Western lowland gorillas. Subjects were presented with three training stimuli: one that was always rewarded (P), one that was never rewarded (N) and one that was ambiguous (A) because its reward association depended on whether it had been paired with P (PA pairing) or N (NA pairing). Differential learning of NA and PA pairs provided insight into affective state as the bear and one gorilla learned NA pairs more readily, indicating that they focused on cues of reinforcement more than cues of non-reinforcement, whereas the opposite was true of one gorilla. A third gorilla did not learn either pairings at above chance levels. Although all subjects experienced difficulty learning the pairings, we were able to assess responses to A during probe trials in the bear and one gorilla. Both responded optimistically, but it was difficult to determine whether their responses were a true reflection of affective state or were due to preferences for specific stimuli. MDPI 2017-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5618059/ /pubmed/28792447 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs7030051 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
McGuire, Molly C.
Vonk, Jennifer
Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe
Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear
title Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear
title_full Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear
title_fullStr Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear
title_full_unstemmed Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear
title_short Ambiguous Results When Using the Ambiguous-Cue Paradigm to Assess Learning and Cognitive Bias in Gorillas and a Black Bear
title_sort ambiguous results when using the ambiguous-cue paradigm to assess learning and cognitive bias in gorillas and a black bear
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5618059/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28792447
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs7030051
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