Cargando…

Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making

Humans can often handle daunting tasks with ease by developing a set of strategies to reduce decision-making into simpler problems. The ability to use heuristic strategies demands an advanced level of intelligence and has not been demonstrated in animals. Here, we trained macaque monkeys to play the...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Yang, Qianli, Lin, Zhongqiao, Zhang, Wenyi, Li, Jianshu, Chen, Xiyuan, Zhang, Jiaqi, Yang, Tianming
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8963886/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35286255
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500
_version_ 1784678087084998656
author Yang, Qianli
Lin, Zhongqiao
Zhang, Wenyi
Li, Jianshu
Chen, Xiyuan
Zhang, Jiaqi
Yang, Tianming
author_facet Yang, Qianli
Lin, Zhongqiao
Zhang, Wenyi
Li, Jianshu
Chen, Xiyuan
Zhang, Jiaqi
Yang, Tianming
author_sort Yang, Qianli
collection PubMed
description Humans can often handle daunting tasks with ease by developing a set of strategies to reduce decision-making into simpler problems. The ability to use heuristic strategies demands an advanced level of intelligence and has not been demonstrated in animals. Here, we trained macaque monkeys to play the classic video game Pac-Man. The monkeys’ decision-making may be described with a strategy-based hierarchical decision-making model with over 90% accuracy. The model reveals that the monkeys adopted the take-the-best heuristic by using one dominating strategy for their decision-making at a time and formed compound strategies by assembling the basis strategies to handle particular game situations. With the model, the computationally complex but fully quantifiable Pac-Man behavior paradigm provides a new approach to understanding animals’ advanced cognition.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8963886
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-89638862022-03-30 Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making Yang, Qianli Lin, Zhongqiao Zhang, Wenyi Li, Jianshu Chen, Xiyuan Zhang, Jiaqi Yang, Tianming eLife Neuroscience Humans can often handle daunting tasks with ease by developing a set of strategies to reduce decision-making into simpler problems. The ability to use heuristic strategies demands an advanced level of intelligence and has not been demonstrated in animals. Here, we trained macaque monkeys to play the classic video game Pac-Man. The monkeys’ decision-making may be described with a strategy-based hierarchical decision-making model with over 90% accuracy. The model reveals that the monkeys adopted the take-the-best heuristic by using one dominating strategy for their decision-making at a time and formed compound strategies by assembling the basis strategies to handle particular game situations. With the model, the computationally complex but fully quantifiable Pac-Man behavior paradigm provides a new approach to understanding animals’ advanced cognition. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8963886/ /pubmed/35286255 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500 Text en © 2022, Yang et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Yang, Qianli
Lin, Zhongqiao
Zhang, Wenyi
Li, Jianshu
Chen, Xiyuan
Zhang, Jiaqi
Yang, Tianming
Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
title Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
title_full Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
title_fullStr Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
title_full_unstemmed Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
title_short Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
title_sort monkey plays pac-man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8963886/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35286255
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500
work_keys_str_mv AT yangqianli monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking
AT linzhongqiao monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking
AT zhangwenyi monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking
AT lijianshu monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking
AT chenxiyuan monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking
AT zhangjiaqi monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking
AT yangtianming monkeyplayspacmanwithcompositionalstrategiesandhierarchicaldecisionmaking