Flemming Timothy M, Kennedy Erica Hoy
Department of Psychology and Language Research Center, Georgia State University, PO Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010, USA.
J Comp Psychol. 2011 May;125(2):207-15. doi: 10.1037/a0022098.
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have been known to exhibit rudimentary abilities in analogical reasoning (Flemming, Beran, Thompson, Kleider, & Washburn, 2008; Gillian, Premack, & Woodruff, 1981; Haun & Call, 2009; Thompson & Oden, 2000; Thompson, Oden, & Boysen, 1997). With a wide array of individual differences, little can be concluded about the species' capacity for analogies, much less their strategies employed for solving such problems. In this study, we examined analogical strategies in 3 chimpanzees using a 3-dimensional search task (e.g., Kennedy & Fragaszy, 2008). Food items were hidden under 1 of 2 or 3 plastic cups of varying sizes. Subsequently, chimpanzees searched for food under the cup of the same relative size in their own set of cups--reasoning by analogy. Two chimpanzees initially appeared to fail the first relational phase of the task. Meta-analyses revealed, however, that they were instead using a secondary strategy not rewarded by the contingencies of the task--choosing on the basis of the same relative position in the sample. Although this was not the intended strategy of the task, it was nonetheless analogical. In subsequent phases of the task, chimpanzees eventually learned to shift their analogical reasoning strategy to match the reward contingencies of the task and successfully choose on the basis of relative size. This evidence not only provides support for the analogical ape hypothesis (Thompson & Oden, 2000), but also exemplifies how foundational conceptually mediated analogical behavior may be for the chimpanzee.
众所周知，黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes）在类比推理方面表现出基本能力（弗莱明、贝兰、汤普森、克莱德和沃什伯恩，2008年；吉利安、普雷马克和伍德拉夫，1981年；豪恩和卡尔，2009年；汤普森和奥登，2000年；汤普森、奥登和博伊森，1997年）。由于存在广泛的个体差异，关于该物种的类比能力几乎无法得出结论，更不用说它们解决此类问题所采用的策略了。在本研究中，我们使用三维搜索任务（例如，肯尼迪和弗拉加齐，2008年）对3只黑猩猩的类比策略进行了研究。食物被藏在2个或3个不同大小的塑料杯中的1个下面。随后，黑猩猩在它们自己的一组杯子中，在相对大小相同的杯子下面寻找食物——通过类比进行推理。最初，有两只黑猩猩似乎未能通过任务的第一个关系阶段。然而，元分析显示，它们实际上使用的是一种未因任务偶然性而得到奖励的次要策略——根据样本中相同的相对位置进行选择。虽然这不是任务的预期策略，但它仍然是类比性的。在任务的后续阶段，黑猩猩最终学会了改变它们的类比推理策略，以匹配任务的奖励偶然性，并成功地根据相对大小进行选择。这一证据不仅为类比猿假说（汤普森和奥登，2000年）提供了支持，也例证了概念介导的类比行为对于黑猩猩可能有多么重要。
