Journal of Comparative Psychology最新文献

Humans anthropomorphize: as a result of our evolved ultrasociality, we see the world through person-colored glasses. In this review, I suggest that an interesting proportion of the extraordinary tool-using abilities shown by humans results from our mistakenly anthropomorphizing and forming social relationships with objects and devices. I introduce the term machination to describe this error, sketch an outline of the evidence for it, tie it to intrinsic reward for social interaction, and use it to help explain overimitation-itself posited as underpinning human technological complexity-by human children and adults. I also suggest pathways for testing the concept's presence and limits, with an explicit focus on context-specific individual and temporal variation. I posit cognitive pressure from time constraints or opaque mechanisms as a cause for machination, with rapid, subconscious attribution of goals or desires to tools reducing cognitive overload. Machination holds promise for understanding how we create and use combinatorial technology, for clarifying differences with nonhuman animal tool use, and for examining the human fascination with objects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Individuals in social groups can gain benefits from being in those groups, including an increased ability to find food and avoid predators. We tested for potential group benefits in shelter choice in the Argentinian wood roach, Blaptica dubia. Roaches were tested in arenas with two shelters available in which one shelter was significantly darker than the other. Female and male roaches, housed separately, were tested as solitary individuals, or in same-sex groups of 5, 10, or 15. The roaches were tested under two light regimes (lights on vs. lights off) and two shelter distances (shelters near vs. shelters far) to provide variation in shelter search conditions. Solitary individuals chose the darker shelter at chance levels, but the roaches in groups chose the darker shelter significantly more often than chance. Furthermore, the two largest groups chose the darker shelter more often than the group of five roaches. We detected effects related to light variation that indicated roaches were more likely to be under either shelter in the lights-on conditions, and more likely to be out in the arena and under no shelter in the lights-off condition. Shelter distances had negligible effects on shelter choice and sex had no effect. Taken together, our results indicate individuals can make more optimal choices regarding shelter darkness if they are in a group, and that decision-making related to shelter is sensitive to variation in social context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The cap-pushing response (CPR) is a new free-flying technique used to study learning and memory in honey bees. Bees fly to a target where they push a cap to reveal a hidden food source. When combined with traditional odor and color targets, the CPR technique opens the door to additional choice preference tests in honey bees. To facilitate the use of the CPR technique, three experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 investigates the impact of extended training on the CPR response and its role in extinction. Experiment 2 explores the role of CPR in overshadowing, and Experiment 3 explores the effects of electric shock punishment on the CPR technique. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).