Subias Lorraine, Griffin Andrea S, Guez David
School of Psychology, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia.
Integr Zool. 2019 Mar;14(2):193-203. doi: 10.1111/1749-4877.12299.
Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When designed appropriately, tests of this ability can reveal choices that cannot be explained by associative processes. Over the past decade, exclusion reasoning has been explored in several non-human taxonomic groups, including birds, mainly in Corvids and Parrots. To increase our understanding of the taxonomic distribution of exclusion reasoning and, therefore, its evolution, we investigated exclusion performances in red-tailed black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii), an Australian relative of the Goffin cockatoo (Cacatua goffini), using a food-finding task. Cockatoos were required to find a food item hidden in 1 of the 2 experimenter's hands. Following training sessions in which they reliably selected the closed baited hand they had just been shown open, each individual was tested on 4 different conditions. Critical to demonstrating exclusion reasoning was the condition in which they were shown the empty hand and then offered a choice of both closed hands. The performance of all birds was above chance on all experimental conditions but not on an olfactory and/or cuing control condition. The results suggest that the birds might be able to infer by exclusion, although an explanation based on rule learning cannot be excluded. This first experiment in red-tailed black cockatoo highlights the potential of this species as a model to study avian cognition and paves the pathway for future investigations.
排除推理是指通过排除其他选项来选择给定选项的能力。如果设计得当，对这种能力的测试可以揭示那些无法用联想过程来解释的选择。在过去十年中，已经在包括鸟类（主要是鸦科和鹦鹉）在内的几个非人类分类群体中探索了排除推理。为了增进我们对排除推理的分类学分布及其进化的理解，我们使用一项寻找食物的任务，对红尾黑凤头鹦鹉（Calyptorhynchus banksii）——戈氏凤头鹦鹉（Cacatua goffini）的澳大利亚近亲——的排除表现进行了研究。凤头鹦鹉需要找出藏在实验者两只手中其中一只的食物。在经过训练，它们能够可靠地选择刚刚被展示为打开的那只装有诱饵的闭合手之后，对每只个体在4种不同条件下进行测试。对于证明排除推理至关重要的条件是，向它们展示空手，然后让它们在两只闭合手中进行选择。在所有实验条件下，所有鸟类的表现都高于随机水平，但在嗅觉和/或提示控制条件下则不然。结果表明，这些鸟类可能能够通过排除进行推理，尽管基于规则学习的解释也不能被排除。红尾黑凤头鹦鹉的这第一个实验凸显了该物种作为研究鸟类认知模型的潜力，并为未来的研究铺平了道路。
