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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...

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Autores principales: Miller, Rachael, Frohnwieser, Anna, Schiestl, Martina, McCoy, Dakota E., Gray, Russell D., Taylor, Alex H., Clayton, Nicola S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2019
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.
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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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