Neldner Karri, Collier-Baker Emma, Nielsen Mark
Early Cognitive Development Centre, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia,
Anim Cogn. 2015 May;18(3):683-99. doi: 10.1007/s10071-015-0836-6. Epub 2015 Jan 14.
Over the last decade, the metacognitive abilities of nonhuman primates and the developmental emergence of metacognition in children have become topics of increasing research interest. In the current study, the performance of three adult chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes; Experiment 1) and forty-four 3.5- and 5.5-year-old human children (Experiment 2) was assessed on a behavioral search paradigm designed to assess metacognition. Subjects either directly observed the baiting of a large reward into one cup among an array of four, or had the baiting occluded from their view. In half of the trials, subjects were also presented with an additional distinctive cup that was always visibly baited with a small reward. This cup allowed subjects the opportunity to escape from making a guess about the location of the bigger reward. All three chimpanzees and both age groups of children selected the escape cup more often when the baiting of the large reward was concealed, compared to when it was visible. This demonstrates that both species can selectively choose a guaranteed smaller reward when they do not know the location of a larger reward and provides insight into the development of metacognition.
在过去十年中，非人类灵长类动物的元认知能力以及儿童元认知的发展出现，已成为研究兴趣日益浓厚的主题。在当前的研究中，我们使用一种旨在评估元认知的行为搜索范式，对三只成年黑猩猩（黑猩猩属；实验1）和四十四名3.5岁及5.5岁的人类儿童（实验2）的表现进行了评估。受试者要么直接观察到将一份大奖励放入四个杯子中的一个杯子里，要么诱饵放置过程对他们的视线进行遮挡。在一半的试验中，还会给受试者展示一个额外的独特杯子，里面总是明显放置着一份小奖励。这个杯子让受试者有机会避免去猜测更大奖励的位置。与大奖励放置情况可见时相比，当大奖励的放置被隐藏时，所有三只黑猩猩以及两个年龄组的儿童都更频繁地选择了逃生杯。这表明，当它们不知道更大奖励的位置时，这两个物种都可以选择性地选择有保证的较小奖励，这为元认知的发展提供了见解。
