Does absolute brain size really predict self-control? Hand-tracking training improves performance on the A-not-B task.

ABSTRACT: Large-scale, comparative cognition studies are set to revolutionize the way we investigate and understand the evolution of intelligence. However, the conclusions reached by such work have a key limitation: the cognitive tests themselves. If factors other than cognition can systematically affect the performance of a subset of animals on these tests, we risk drawing the wrong conclusions about how intelligence evolves. Here, we examined whether this is the case for the A-not-B task, recently used by MacLean and co-workers to study self-control among 36 different species. Non-primates performed poorly on this task; possibly because they have difficulty tracking the movements of a human demonstrator, and not because they lack self-control. To test this, we assessed the performance of New Caled

SUBMITTER: Jelbert SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4780546 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature