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Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility
Self-control underlies cognitive abilities such as decision making and future planning. Delay of gratification is a measure of self-control and involves obtaining a more valuable outcome in the future by tolerating a delay or investing a greater effort in the present. Contextual issues, such as rewa...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6981108/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31630344 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01317-7 |
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author | Miller, Rachael Frohnwieser, Anna Schiestl, Martina McCoy, Dakota E. Gray, Russell D. Taylor, Alex H. Clayton, Nicola S. |
author_facet | Miller, Rachael Frohnwieser, Anna Schiestl, Martina McCoy, Dakota E. Gray, Russell D. Taylor, Alex H. Clayton, Nicola S. |
author_sort | Miller, Rachael |
collection | PubMed |
description | Self-control underlies cognitive abilities such as decision making and future planning. Delay of gratification is a measure of self-control and involves obtaining a more valuable outcome in the future by tolerating a delay or investing a greater effort in the present. Contextual issues, such as reward visibility and type, may influence delayed gratification performance, although there has been limited comparative investigation between humans and other animals, particularly non-primate species. Here, we adapted an automated ‘rotating tray’ paradigm used previously with capuchin monkeys to test for delay of gratification ability that requires little pre-test training, where the subject must forgo an immediate, less preferred reward for a delayed, more preferred one. We tested New Caledonian crows and 3–5-year-old human children. We manipulated reward types to differ in quality or quantity (Experiments 1 and 2) as well as visibility (Experiment 2). In Experiments 1 and 2, both species performed better when the rewards varied in quality as opposed to quantity, though performed above chance in both conditions. In Experiment 1, both crows and children were able to delay gratification when both rewards were visible. In Experiment 2, 5-year-old children outperformed 3- and 4-year olds, though overall children still performed well, while the crows struggled when reward visibility was manipulated, a result which may relate to difficulties in tracking the experimenters’ hands during baiting. We discuss these findings in relation to the role of contextual issues on self-control when making species comparisons and investigating the mechanisms of self-control. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10071-019-01317-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6981108 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69811082020-02-03 Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility Miller, Rachael Frohnwieser, Anna Schiestl, Martina McCoy, Dakota E. Gray, Russell D. Taylor, Alex H. Clayton, Nicola S. Anim Cogn Original Paper Self-control underlies cognitive abilities such as decision making and future planning. Delay of gratification is a measure of self-control and involves obtaining a more valuable outcome in the future by tolerating a delay or investing a greater effort in the present. Contextual issues, such as reward visibility and type, may influence delayed gratification performance, although there has been limited comparative investigation between humans and other animals, particularly non-primate species. Here, we adapted an automated ‘rotating tray’ paradigm used previously with capuchin monkeys to test for delay of gratification ability that requires little pre-test training, where the subject must forgo an immediate, less preferred reward for a delayed, more preferred one. We tested New Caledonian crows and 3–5-year-old human children. We manipulated reward types to differ in quality or quantity (Experiments 1 and 2) as well as visibility (Experiment 2). In Experiments 1 and 2, both species performed better when the rewards varied in quality as opposed to quantity, though performed above chance in both conditions. In Experiment 1, both crows and children were able to delay gratification when both rewards were visible. In Experiment 2, 5-year-old children outperformed 3- and 4-year olds, though overall children still performed well, while the crows struggled when reward visibility was manipulated, a result which may relate to difficulties in tracking the experimenters’ hands during baiting. We discuss these findings in relation to the role of contextual issues on self-control when making species comparisons and investigating the mechanisms of self-control. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10071-019-01317-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2019-10-19 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC6981108/ /pubmed/31630344 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01317-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Miller, Rachael Frohnwieser, Anna Schiestl, Martina McCoy, Dakota E. Gray, Russell D. Taylor, Alex H. Clayton, Nicola S. Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
title | Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
title_full | Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
title_fullStr | Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
title_full_unstemmed | Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
title_short | Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
title_sort | delayed gratification in new caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6981108/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31630344 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01317-7 |
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