Fortes Antonio F, Merchant Hugo, Georgopoulos Apostolos P
Brain Sciences Center, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55417, USA.
Anim Cogn. 2004 Apr;7(2):101-8. doi: 10.1007/s10071-003-0195-6. Epub 2003 Oct 7.
Adult human subjects can classify the height of an object as belonging to either of the "high" or "low" categories by utilizing an abstract concept of midline that divides the vertical dimension into two halves. Children lack this abstract concept of midline, do not have a sense that these categories are directional opposites, and their categorical and comparative usages of high(er) or low(er) are restricted to the corresponding poles. We investigated the abilities of a rhesus monkey to perform categorical judgments in space. We were also interested in the presence of the congruity effect (a decrease in response time when the objects compared are closer to the category pole) in the monkey. The presence of this phenomenon in the monkey would allow us to relate the behavior of the animal to the two major competing hypotheses that have been suggested to explain the congruity effect in humans: the analog and semantic models. The monkey was trained in delayed match-to-sample tasks in which it had to categorize objects as belonging to either a high or low category. The monkey was able to generate an abstract notion of midline in a fashion similar to that of adult human subjects. The congruity effect was also present in the monkey. These findings, taken together with the notion that monkeys are not considered to think in propositional terms, may favor an analog comparison model in the monkey.
成年人类受试者可以通过利用将垂直维度分为两半的中线抽象概念，将物体的高度归类为“高”或“低”类别中的任何一类。儿童缺乏这种中线抽象概念，不认为这些类别是方向相反的，并且他们对高（更高）或低（更低）的分类和比较用法仅限于相应的极点。我们研究了恒河猴在空间中进行分类判断的能力。我们还对猴子中是否存在一致性效应（当比较的物体更接近类别极点时反应时间减少）感兴趣。猴子中这种现象的存在将使我们能够将动物的行为与为解释人类一致性效应而提出的两个主要竞争假设联系起来：模拟模型和语义模型。猴子接受了延迟样本匹配任务的训练，在该任务中它必须将物体归类为高或低类别。猴子能够以类似于成年人类受试者的方式产生中线的抽象概念。猴子中也存在一致性效应。这些发现，再加上猴子不被认为以命题方式思考的观点，可能支持猴子中的模拟比较模型。
