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We review the literature surrounding the phylogenetic and developmental emergence of goal-oriented behavior, among human and non-human primates. We define goal-oriented awareness as the ability to perceive goals and perceptions in others. We examine empirical literature involving gaze-following, shared attention, distinguishing between actions and intentions, and the ability to generate and understand communicative cues. We conclude that at least a rudimentary awareness of goal-oriented behavior is present from birth in humans, and in adult great apes. The evidence in other primate species shows phylogenetic differences as well as gaps in the empirical literature., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The interaction of working and reference memory was studied in rats on an eight-arm radial maze. In two experiments, rats were trained to perform working memory and reference memory tasks. On working memory trials, they were allowed to enter four randomly chosen arms for reward in a study phase and then had to choose the unentered arms for reward in a test phase. On reference memory trials, they had to learn to visit the same four arms on the maze on every trial for reward. Retention was tested on working memory trials in which the interval between the study and test phase was 15 s, 15 min, or 30 min. At each retention interval, tests were performed in which the correct WM arms were either congruent or incongruent with the correct RM arms. Both experiments showed that congruency interacted with retention interval, yielding more forgetting at 30 min on incongruent trials than on congruent trials. The effect of reference memory strength on the congruency effect was examined in Experiment 1, and the effect of associating different contexts with working and reference memory on the congruency effect was studied in Experiment 2.

Previous research has suggested that several primate species may be capable of reasoning by exclusion based on the finding that they can locate a hidden object when given information about where the object is not. The present research replicated and extended the literature by testing 2 Old World monkey species, lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) and a hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas), and 2 New World species, capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus). The New World monkeys were tested on the traditional 2-way object choice task, and all 4 species were also tested on a more complex 3-way object choice task. In addition, the squirrel monkeys were tested on a 2-way object choice task with auditory information. The results showed that, whereas the Old World species were able to infer by exclusion on the 3-object task, some of the capuchin monkeys had difficulty on each of the 2- and 3-cup tasks. All but 1 of the squirrel monkeys failed to infer successfully, and their strategies appeared to differ between the visual and auditory versions of the task. Taken together, this research suggests that the ability to succeed on this inference task may be present throughout Old World monkey species, but is fragile in the New World species tested thus far. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

In previous research, great apes and rhesus macaques have demonstrated multiple apparently metacognitive abilities, whereas capuchin monkeys have not. The present experiment investigated whether at least a rudimentary form of metacognition might be demonstrated in capuchins if a simplified metacognitive task was used. Capuchins (Cebus apella) were required to locate a food reward hidden beneath one of two inverted cups that sat on a Plexiglas tray. In some conditions, the capuchins were shown where the food was hidden, in others they could infer its location, and in yet others they were not given information about the location of the food. On all trials, capuchins could optionally seek information about the food's location by looking up through the Plexiglas beneath the cups. In general, capuchins did this less often when they were shown the food reward, but not when they could infer the reward's location. These data suggest that capuchins-if metacognitive-only metacognitively control their information seeking in some conditions, particularly those in which information is presented in the visual domain. This may represent a rudimentary version of metacognitive control, in comparison with that seen in great apes and humans.

Previous research has demonstrated that Old World primates (both apes and monkeys) seek information about the location of a hidden food item, unless they are privy to the hiding process. This has been cited as evidence of metacognition. However, these results could also be interpreted using non-metacognitive accounts, including a generalized search response to uncertainty, in which subjects reach for food when it is seen, or search for food until it is spotted. In the present research, lion-tailed macaques were tested on an object-choice task. Conditions varied with respect to the visibility of the baiting process, and whether the location of the hidden food could be inferred by logical exclusion. Additionally, the hidden food could be located visually before a choice was made, by peering under the objects through a Plexiglas tray. Across conditions, monkeys consistently looked for the food when it had not been seen, even if its location could be inferred, despite the fact that these monkeys are capable of inference by exclusion. This suggests that apparently 'metacognitive' information seeking in monkeys may instead reflect a generalized search strategy. Alternatively, it is possible that monkeys only have metacognitive access to certain types of knowledge, including that obtained visually. Results are discussed with respect to the likelihood of metacognition in this species and the evolutionary emergence of metacognition across species.

Despite the fact that photographic stimuli are used across experimental contexts with both human and nonhuman subjects, the nature of individuals' perceptions of these stimuli is still not well understood. In the present experiments, we tested whether three orangutans and 36 human children could use photographic information presented on a computer screen to solve a perceptually corresponding problem in the physical domain. Furthermore, we tested the cues that aided in this process by pitting featural information against spatial position in a series of probe trials. We found that many of the children and one orangutan were successfully able to use the information cross-dimensionally; however, the other two orangutans and almost a quarter of the children failed to acquire the task. Species differences emerged with respect to ease of task acquisition. More striking, however, were the differences in cues that participants used to solve the task: Whereas the orangutan used a spatial strategy, the majority of children used a feature one. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed from both evolutionary and developmental perspectives. The novel results found here underscore the need for further testing in this area to design appropriate experimental paradigms in future comparative research settings.

Recent research has examined whether animals possess metacognition, or the ability to monitor their knowledge states. However, the extent to which animals actively control their knowledge states is still not well delineated. Although organisms might be capable of seeking information when it is lacking, it does not mean that it is always adaptive to do so. In the present set of experiments, we examined the flexibility of this behavior in captive orangutans (Pongo abelii; two adults and one juvenile) in a foraging task, by varying the necessity of information-seeking, the cost associated with it, the likelihood of error, and the value of the reward. In Experiment 1, subjects searched for information most often when it was "cheapest" energetically. In Experiment 2, subjects searched for information most often when the odds of making an error were the greatest. In Experiment 3, subjects searched for information more when the reward was doubled in value. In Experiment 4, adult subjects adapted to risk/benefit trade-offs in their searching behavior. In every experiment, subjects sought information more often when they needed it than when they already knew the solution to the problem. Therefore, the current research suggests that information-seeking behavior in orangutans shows a sophisticated level of flexibility, comparable to that seen in human children, as they appear to "play the odds" when making the decision to seek information or not., (2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Recent empirical work has suggested that some species of non-human primates may be aware of their knowledge states. One finding to support this claim is that they seek information about the location of a hidden food item when they are unsure of its location, but not when they already know where it is, which purportedly demonstrates metacognition. However, this behaviour may instead reflect a generalized search strategy, in which subjects reach for food when they see it, and search for it when they do not. In this experiment, this possibility was addressed by testing orangutans in three conditions in which the location of a food item was sometimes known to subjects, and other times required subjects to visually seek the missing information. All subjects exhibited behaviour consistent with a metacognitive interpretation in at least two of the three conditions. Critically, in two of the conditions, subjects refrained from seeking visual information, and correctly found the hidden food item without ever seeing it, using inference by exclusion. The results suggest that animals that succeed in this information-seeking task are not merely acting according to a generalized search strategy, and instead seek information adaptively according to their knowledge states.

Landmark use has been demonstrated in a variety of organisms, yet the manner in which landmarks are encoded and subsequently used appears to vary between and sometimes within species, even when faced with identical landmark arrays. In the present experiments, orangutans and human children were shown a square array of identical landmarks and were trained to locate a hidden goal in the centre of the array. In Experiments 1 and 2, the search space appeared to be discrete, with white gridlines dividing up the space, and in Experiments 3a and 3b, the search space was uniformly coloured, making it appear continuous. In all experiments, following training, subjects were given a single expansion test, to determine their landmark strategy use, based on peak search activity. The orangutans appeared to use absolute directional vectors from individual landmarks, with peak search activities on the inner corners of the square array, and they used this strategy persistently. In contrast, human children showed two landmark-based strategies, absolute directional vectors and a relational or "middle" strategy, with the majority of children starting their search in the middle region. Although some children, especially young children, persistently used one strategy like the orangutans, many changed strategies when the original one failed to yield the hidden goal.

Behne, Carpenter, Call, and Tomasello (2005) showed that 9- to 18-month-olds, but not 6-month-olds, differentiated between people who were unwilling and unable to share toys. As the outcome of the two tasks is the same (i.e., the toy is not shared), the infants must respond to the different goals of the actor. However, visual habituation paradigms have shown an earlier onset of goal awareness. The present study reconciles this disparity by replicating the findings of Behne et al. with both 6- and 9-month-olds, using similar tasks and additional response measures., (Copyright © International Society on Infant Studies (ISIS).)

The extent to which categorization of natural classes in animals reflects a generalization based on perceptual similarity versus an abstract conceptual representation remains unclear. Here, two experiments were conducted to identify the perceptual features used by orangutans when categorizing pictures. In Experiment 1, subjects were trained and tested for transfer on a concrete discrimination (gorillas or orangutans vs. other primates). Analysis of performance on both positive and negative exemplars revealed that performance was best on photos with faces, particularly close-ups. Moreover, error trials did not seem to reflect instances of mistaken identity, but rather, exemplars that may have been distracting for other reasons, such as novel coloration or morphology. In Experiment 2, photos were modified to test the effects of various features. Color modifications caused the biggest decrease in performance, and eye modifications also affected performance deleteriously. Therefore, two perceptual features, namely eye regions and color, played a key role in subjects' ability to categorize. However, performance based on an underlying concept cannot be ruled out, because both of these features are highly relevant in terms of defining category membership. Although a subset of features was identified as playing a key role in categorization, these features differed depending on whether feature-use was studied indirectly, as in Experiment 1, or directly, as in Experiment 2.

The dynamics of nanostructured surface phases on SrTiO(3)(001) have been analysed using in situ scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) above 800 degrees C. During high-temperature annealing, the formation, growth and ordering of the nanostructures has been observed. Dilines, with a width of approximately 1 nm, are formed from a TiO(2)-rich intermediary at 800 degrees C. STM during annealing at 825 degrees C has enabled us to follow both the growth and dissolution of dilines. Following extended annealing, trilines with a width of approximately 2 nm and ordered two-dimensional (2D) nano-arrays form from the diline domains. Our observations of diline dissolution implies random nucleation and growth, followed by rearrangement at elevated temperature to form domains.