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Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)

Over the last two decades, evidence has accrued that at least some nonhuman animals possess metacognitive abilities. However, of the carnivores, only domestic dogs have been tested. Although rarely represented in the psychological literature, foxes are good candidates for metacognition given that th...

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Autores principales: Eaton, Taryn, Billette, Patricia, Vonk, Jennifer
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7287701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32357527
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs10050081
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author Eaton, Taryn
Billette, Patricia
Vonk, Jennifer
author_facet Eaton, Taryn
Billette, Patricia
Vonk, Jennifer
author_sort Eaton, Taryn
collection PubMed
description Over the last two decades, evidence has accrued that at least some nonhuman animals possess metacognitive abilities. However, of the carnivores, only domestic dogs have been tested. Although rarely represented in the psychological literature, foxes are good candidates for metacognition given that they cache their food. Two experiments assessed metacognition in one male arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) for the first time. An information-seeking paradigm was used, in which the subject had the opportunity to discover which compartment was baited before making a choice by looking through a transparent window in the apparatus. In the first experiment, choice accuracy during seen trials was equal to choice accuracy on unseen trials. Importantly, there was no significant difference between the subject’s looking behavior on seen versus unseen trials. In the second experiment, with chance probabilities reduced, the subject’s choice accuracy on both seen and unseen trials was below chance. The subject did not exhibit looking behavior in any of the trials. Latencies to choose were not influenced by whether he witnessed baiting. Although we did not obtain evidence of metacognition in our tests of a single subject, we maintain that foxes may be good candidates for further tests using similar methodologies to those introduced here.
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spelling pubmed-72877012020-06-15 Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus) Eaton, Taryn Billette, Patricia Vonk, Jennifer Behav Sci (Basel) Article Over the last two decades, evidence has accrued that at least some nonhuman animals possess metacognitive abilities. However, of the carnivores, only domestic dogs have been tested. Although rarely represented in the psychological literature, foxes are good candidates for metacognition given that they cache their food. Two experiments assessed metacognition in one male arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) for the first time. An information-seeking paradigm was used, in which the subject had the opportunity to discover which compartment was baited before making a choice by looking through a transparent window in the apparatus. In the first experiment, choice accuracy during seen trials was equal to choice accuracy on unseen trials. Importantly, there was no significant difference between the subject’s looking behavior on seen versus unseen trials. In the second experiment, with chance probabilities reduced, the subject’s choice accuracy on both seen and unseen trials was below chance. The subject did not exhibit looking behavior in any of the trials. Latencies to choose were not influenced by whether he witnessed baiting. Although we did not obtain evidence of metacognition in our tests of a single subject, we maintain that foxes may be good candidates for further tests using similar methodologies to those introduced here. MDPI 2020-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7287701/ /pubmed/32357527 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs10050081 Text en © 2020 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
Eaton, Taryn
Billette, Patricia
Vonk, Jennifer
Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_full Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_fullStr Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_full_unstemmed Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_short Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_sort are there metacognitivists in the fox hole? a preliminary test of information seeking in an arctic fox (vulpes lagopus)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7287701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32357527
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs10050081
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