Silva Francisco J, Silva Kathleen M
Department of Psychology, University of Redlands, 1200 East Colton Avenue, Redlands, CA 92373, USA.
Learn Behav. 2010 Feb;38(1):87-95. doi: 10.3758/LB.38.1.87.
We examined humans' tool selections on stick-and-tube tasks similar to those used to study crows' and other avian species' physical cognition. In Experiment 1, the participants selected a stick from a set of 10 to retrieve a candy placed in a horizontal tube. Although the stick that was selected depended on the distance to the candy, the participants generally did not select a stick whose length was the same as the candy's distance from the open end of the tube nor did they select the longest stick in the set-two strategies that have been reported in crows. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used variations of the stick-and-tube task to determine what factors in addition to the candy's distance influenced the participants' selections. The results showed that tool selection depended on the stimulus context (i.e., the number and lengths of the alternative tools).
我们研究了人类在类似于用于研究乌鸦和其他鸟类物种物理认知的棒管任务中的工具选择。在实验1中，参与者从一组10根棒中选择一根，以取出放置在水平管中的糖果。虽然所选的棒取决于与糖果的距离，但参与者通常不会选择长度与糖果到管开口端的距离相同的棒，也不会选择该组中最长的棒——这是在乌鸦中报道过的两种策略。在实验2和3中，我们使用棒管任务的变体来确定除糖果距离之外还有哪些因素会影响参与者的选择。结果表明，工具选择取决于刺激情境（即替代工具的数量和长度）。
