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Related Experiment Video

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The Innovation Arena: A Method for Comparing Innovative Problem-Solving Across Groups

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Published on: May 13, 2022

Tokens improve capuchin performance in the reverse-reward contingency task.

Elsa Addessi¹, Sabrina Rossi

¹CNR, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Rome, Italy. elsa.addessi@istc.cnr.it

Proceedings. Biological Sciences

|September 24, 2010

Summary

Capuchin monkeys demonstrated improved performance in a reverse-reward task when using symbolic tokens. This suggests that symbolic competence, aiding in inhibiting predispositions, may have deeper evolutionary roots than previously understood.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Evolution
Primate Behavior
Symbolic Cognition

Background:

Symbolic competence, particularly the ability to inhibit behavioral predispositions, is well-documented in humans and apes.
The evolutionary origins of symbolic competence in non-ape primates remain largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether symbolic tokens enhance performance in the reverse-reward contingency task in capuchin monkeys.
To explore the evolutionary roots of symbolic competence by examining non-ape primate performance.

Main Methods:

Eight capuchin monkeys were tested on a reverse-reward task using either direct food quantities or tokens with varying symbolic distances.
Subjects selected the smaller quantity (food or token) to receive a larger reward, with no procedural changes.

Main Results:

Capuchin monkeys showed improved performance with high-symbolic distance tokens compared to direct food quantities.
Five out of eight subjects succeeded using high-symbolic distance tokens, while only one succeeded with food.
Two subjects demonstrated rule transfer to novel token combinations, ruling out simple learning or preference reversals.

Conclusions:

Tokens facilitate the inhibition of strong behavioral predispositions in capuchin monkeys, similar to findings in apes and humans.
This study provides the first evidence that tokens can aid non-ape primates in tasks requiring the suppression of immediate impulses.
Symbolic competence may have evolved earlier in primate lineages than previously assumed.