Judit J. Stolla
(1 German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 2 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute, Department for Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany)
In animal cognition research, the use of touchscreens has increased in recent years. Compared to classical tasks, computerized testing allows for high stimulus control and high temporal resolution, minimizing confounding effects that might occur during interaction with an experimenter, and enables researchers to test a large variety of cognitive tasks in standardized ways. Knowing how nonhuman subjects represent test stimuli is important for drawing conclusions from obtained data as well as for the selection of appropriate stimuli and research procedures. Fagot and colleagues (2001) propose three modes of picture processing: The independent processing describes that subjects perceive no representational relationship between object and picture; in the confusion mode, subjects do not perceive a difference between object and picture; and the equivalence mode describes that subjects understand the symbolic relationship that exists between object and picture. To investigate picture processing in our test subjects, we examined whether Guinea baboons (Papio papio) (n = 8) can transfer a learned discrimination between real objects and their photographs on a touchscreen, and vice versa. Preliminary results found no evidence for a learning transfer between the object and picture conditions. This observation indicates that Guinea baboons do not recognize the objects in the pictures, which aligns with the independent processing mode. Interestingly, discrimination learning was faster with real objects compared to pictures on the touchscreen. These findings not only indicate that Guinea baboons do not naturally understand pictures as a depiction of an object, but also inform how learning patterns may differ across experimental modalities.
Judit J. Stolla
(1 German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 2 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute, Department for Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany)
Miriam Schwarz
(1 German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 3 Animal Comparative Economics Laboratory, Chair of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany)
Jörg Beckmann
(Nuremberg Zoo, Am Tiergarten 30, 90480 Nuremberg, Germany)
Lorenzo von Fersen
(Nuremberg Zoo, Am Tiergarten 30, 90480 Nuremberg, Germany)
Stefanie Keupp
(German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 2 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute, Department for Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 5 Leibniz ScienceCampus, German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany)
Julia Fischer
(1 German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 2 Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute, Department for Primate Cognition, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; 5 Leibniz ScienceCampus, German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany)
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