- OXFORD LIBRARY OF PSYCHOLOGY
- [UNTITLED]
- Short Contents
- Oxford Library of Psychology
- Preface
- References
- About the Editors
- Acknowledgment
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Grouping and Segmentation in Human and Nonhuman Primates
- Seeing What Is Not ThereIllusion, Completion, and Spatiotemporal Boundary Formation in Comparative Perspective
- The Cognitive Chicken: Visual and Spatial Cognition in a Non-mammalian Brain
- New Perspectives on Absolute Pitch in Birds and Mammals
- Reaction-time Explorations of Visual Perception, Attention, and Decision in Pigeons
- The Competition for Attention in Humans and Other Animals
- Establishing Frames of Reference for Finding Hidden GoalsThe Use of Multiple Spatial Cues by Nonhuman Animals and People
- Contemporary Thought on the Environmental Cues that Affect Causal Attribution
- Associative Accounts of Causality Judgments
- Rational RatsCausal Inference and Representation
- ContrastA More Parsimonious Account of Cognitive Dissonance Effects
- Methodological Issues in Comparative Memory Research
- Memory Processing
- The Questions of Temporal and Spatial Displacement in Animal Cognition
- Animal Metacognition
- A Comparative Analysis of Episodic Memory: Cognitive Mechanisms and Neural Substrates
- Spatial, Temporal, and Associative Behavioral Functions Associated with Different Subregions of the Hippocampus
- Arthropod NavigationAnts, Bees, Crabs, Spiders Finding Their Way
- Comparative Spatial CognitionEncoding of Geometric Information from Surfaces and Landmark Arrays
- <b>Corvid CachingThe Role of Cognition</b>
- <b>Behavioristic, Cognitive, Biological, and Quantitative Explanations of Timing</b>
- <b>Sensitivity to TimeImplications for the Representation of Time</b>
- Comparative Cognition of Number Representation
- Similarities Between Temporal and Numerosity Discriminations
- A Modified Feature Theory as an Account of Pigeon Visual Categorization
- Artificial Categories and Prototype Effects in Animals
- Relational Discrimination Learning in Pigeons
- Similarity and Difference in the Conceptual Systems of PrimatesThe Unobservability Hypothesis
- Spatial PatternsBehavioral Control and Cognitive Representation
- The Organization of Sequential BehaviorConditioning, Memory, and Abstraction
- The Comparative Psychology of Ordinal Knowledge
- Truly Random Operant RespondingResults and Reasons
- From Momentary Maximizing to Serial Response Times and Artificial Grammar Learning
- Intelligences and BrainsAn Evolutionary Bird’s-Eye View
- Transitive Inference in Nonhuman Animals
- Dolphin Problem Solving
- “What” and “Where” Analysis and Flexibility in Avian Visual Cognition
- What Is Challenging About Tool Use? The Capuchin’s Perspective
- Social Learning in RatsHistorical Context and Experimental Findings
- Inter-species Social Learning in DogsThe Inextricable Roles of Phylogeny and Ontogeny
- Social LearningStrategies, Mechanisms, and Models
- Chimpanzee Social Cognition in Early LifeComparative–Developmental Perspective
- Social Learning and Culture in Primates: Evidence from Free-Ranging and Captive Populations
- Postscript: An Essay on the Study of Cognition in Animals
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
People and nonhuman animals have the ability to respond unpredictably, indeed in random-like ways, and to do so as an adaptive response to environmental conditions. This chapter discusses evidence for two related claims. The first is that response variability is precisely controlled by reinforcers that are contingent upon levels of variability; that is, variability can serve as an operant response. The second claim is that levels of variability can approach that of a random, or stochastic, model; that is, operant responding can be truly unpredictable. These claims, if valid, have important implications for how we behave, normally and abnormally, and may help us to explain voluntary action, something that is often thought to be exclusive to humans and to depend upon highest-level cognitive capacities.
Keywords: response variability, reinforcers, unpredictability, stochastic behavior
Greg Jensen, Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York.
Claire Miller, Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois, Champaign.
Allen Neuringer, Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, Oregon.
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- OXFORD LIBRARY OF PSYCHOLOGY
- [UNTITLED]
- Short Contents
- Oxford Library of Psychology
- Preface
- References
- About the Editors
- Acknowledgment
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Grouping and Segmentation in Human and Nonhuman Primates
- Seeing What Is Not ThereIllusion, Completion, and Spatiotemporal Boundary Formation in Comparative Perspective
- The Cognitive Chicken: Visual and Spatial Cognition in a Non-mammalian Brain
- New Perspectives on Absolute Pitch in Birds and Mammals
- Reaction-time Explorations of Visual Perception, Attention, and Decision in Pigeons
- The Competition for Attention in Humans and Other Animals
- Establishing Frames of Reference for Finding Hidden GoalsThe Use of Multiple Spatial Cues by Nonhuman Animals and People
- Contemporary Thought on the Environmental Cues that Affect Causal Attribution
- Associative Accounts of Causality Judgments
- Rational RatsCausal Inference and Representation
- ContrastA More Parsimonious Account of Cognitive Dissonance Effects
- Methodological Issues in Comparative Memory Research
- Memory Processing
- The Questions of Temporal and Spatial Displacement in Animal Cognition
- Animal Metacognition
- A Comparative Analysis of Episodic Memory: Cognitive Mechanisms and Neural Substrates
- Spatial, Temporal, and Associative Behavioral Functions Associated with Different Subregions of the Hippocampus
- Arthropod NavigationAnts, Bees, Crabs, Spiders Finding Their Way
- Comparative Spatial CognitionEncoding of Geometric Information from Surfaces and Landmark Arrays
- <b>Corvid CachingThe Role of Cognition</b>
- <b>Behavioristic, Cognitive, Biological, and Quantitative Explanations of Timing</b>
- <b>Sensitivity to TimeImplications for the Representation of Time</b>
- Comparative Cognition of Number Representation
- Similarities Between Temporal and Numerosity Discriminations
- A Modified Feature Theory as an Account of Pigeon Visual Categorization
- Artificial Categories and Prototype Effects in Animals
- Relational Discrimination Learning in Pigeons
- Similarity and Difference in the Conceptual Systems of PrimatesThe Unobservability Hypothesis
- Spatial PatternsBehavioral Control and Cognitive Representation
- The Organization of Sequential BehaviorConditioning, Memory, and Abstraction
- The Comparative Psychology of Ordinal Knowledge
- Truly Random Operant RespondingResults and Reasons
- From Momentary Maximizing to Serial Response Times and Artificial Grammar Learning
- Intelligences and BrainsAn Evolutionary Bird’s-Eye View
- Transitive Inference in Nonhuman Animals
- Dolphin Problem Solving
- “What” and “Where” Analysis and Flexibility in Avian Visual Cognition
- What Is Challenging About Tool Use? The Capuchin’s Perspective
- Social Learning in RatsHistorical Context and Experimental Findings
- Inter-species Social Learning in DogsThe Inextricable Roles of Phylogeny and Ontogeny
- Social LearningStrategies, Mechanisms, and Models
- Chimpanzee Social Cognition in Early LifeComparative–Developmental Perspective
- Social Learning and Culture in Primates: Evidence from Free-Ranging and Captive Populations
- Postscript: An Essay on the Study of Cognition in Animals
- Index
