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A Comparison of Rapid Rule-Learning Strategies in Humans and Monkeys
Vishwa Goudar1, Jeong-Woo Kim1, Yue Liu1
1Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York 10003.
Summary
Female macaques learn new rules slower than humans on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Monkeys and humans share cognitive strategies, but monkeys exhibit perseveration and poor feedback sensitivity.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Comparative psychology
- Primate behavior
Background:
- Understanding human cognition often relies on animal models.
- The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) assesses frontal lobe-dependent cognitive flexibility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare cognitive strategies of female macaques and humans on a WCST variant.
- To identify behavioral and neural correlates of cognition across species.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of macaque and human performance on a WCST.
- Application of input-dependent hidden Markov model-generalized linear models to choice data.
- Analysis of decision-making strategies, including win-stay, lose-shift.
Main Results:
- Monkeys inferred new rules three times slower than minimally instructed humans.
- Both species exhibited feature-based attention and tested multiple rule hypotheses.
- Perseveration, random exploration, and poor negative feedback sensitivity explained slower task-switching in monkeys.
Conclusions:
- Monkeys and humans share inference-like computations for rule discovery.
- Key differences in decision-making strategies contribute to interspecies performance disparities.
- Animal models provide valuable insights into the evolution of human cognitive functions.
