Clements Katherine A, Gray Suzanne L, Gross Brya, Pepperberg Irene M
Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University.
J Comp Psychol. 2018 May;132(2):166-177. doi: 10.1037/com0000106. Epub 2018 Mar 12.
Research has shown that some forms of inferential reasoning are likely widespread throughout the animal kingdom (e.g., exclusion, in which a subject infers the placement of a reward by eliminating potential alternative sites), but other types of inferential tasks have not been extensively tested. We examined whether a nonhuman might succeed in an experiment based on probabilistic reasoning, specifically, the ability to make inferences about a sample based on information about a population. A Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), previously trained to use English labels referentially to identify objects, observed a human researcher deposit 2 different types of items in a 3:1 ratio (e.g., 3 corks and 1 piece of paper) into an opaque bucket. One item was then randomly withdrawn while hidden from the parrot's view. When asked to identify the still-hidden object, the parrot's vocal responses tracked this 3:1 ratio over a large number of trials. Some levels of probabilistic reasoning therefore are not limited to humans, nonhuman primates, or even mammals. (PsycINFO Database Record
研究表明，某些形式的推理可能在整个动物界广泛存在（例如，排除法，即主体通过排除潜在的替代地点来推断奖励的位置），但其他类型的推理任务尚未得到广泛测试。我们研究了一种非人类动物是否能在基于概率推理的实验中取得成功，具体而言，即根据关于总体的信息对样本进行推理的能力。一只非洲灰鹦鹉（Psittacus erithacus），之前经过训练能够参照使用英语标签来识别物体，它观察到一名人类研究人员以3:1的比例（例如，3个软木塞和1张纸）将2种不同类型的物品放入一个不透明的桶中。然后，在鹦鹉看不到的情况下随机取出一件物品。当被要求识别仍隐藏着的物品时，在大量试验中，鹦鹉的发声反应都遵循了这个3:1的比例。因此，某些程度的概率推理并不局限于人类、非人类灵长类动物，甚至哺乳动物。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》 ）
