Kano Fumihiro, Tanaka Masayuki, Tomonaga Masaki
Language and Intelligence Section, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Aichi, 484-8506, Japan.
Anim Cogn. 2008 Jul;11(3):517-24. doi: 10.1007/s10071-008-0142-7. Epub 2008 Feb 8.
Humans often have a better memory of emotional events than neutral events. From the comparative-cognitive perspective, we explored the enhancement of recognition memory by emotion in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) using a serial probe recognition task. In this task, we sequentially presented a list of pictures to subjects and then tested their recognition of specific pictures from within the list. We selected pictures of aggressive chimpanzees as emotional stimuli and less tensed, relaxed chimpanzees as neutral stimuli. In Experiment 1, we gave four-item lists to two young chimpanzees; one showed significantly greater recognition of pictures depicting aggressive chimpanzees than neutral ones. In Experiment 2, this chimpanzee was further tested using a recognition task with eight-item lists. The subject again showed better recognition of emotional stimuli than neutral. Furthermore, the presence of an emotional stimulus in the list also facilitated recognition of the neutral item immediately following it. Overall, although only one of the two chimpanzees showed enhanced recognition memory by emotional stimuli, this is the first demonstration of such a response in the chimpanzee. The findings are discussed in comparison with those of human studies.
人类通常对情感事件的记忆比对中性事件的记忆更好。从比较认知的角度来看，我们使用连续探针识别任务，探究了情感对黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes）识别记忆的增强作用。在这个任务中，我们向受试者依次呈现一系列图片，然后测试他们对列表中特定图片的识别能力。我们选择攻击性黑猩猩的图片作为情感刺激，选择不那么紧张、放松的黑猩猩图片作为中性刺激。在实验1中，我们给两只年轻的黑猩猩呈现四项列表；其中一只对描绘攻击性黑猩猩的图片的识别能力明显高于对中性图片的识别能力。在实验2中，使用八项列表的识别任务对这只黑猩猩进行了进一步测试。该受试者对情感刺激的识别能力再次高于对中性刺激的识别能力。此外，列表中情感刺激的存在也促进了对紧随其后的中性项目的识别。总体而言，虽然两只黑猩猩中只有一只表现出情感刺激增强了识别记忆，但这是首次在黑猩猩身上证明这种反应。我们将这些发现与人类研究的结果进行了比较讨论。
