Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:09:35 BST CiteULike: dep language http://www.citeulike.org/user/dep/tag/language CiteULike.org en-gb Copyright © 2004-2008 citeulike.org http://www.citeulike.org/user/dep/article/1204783 <i>Cognition (20 March 2007)</i><br /><br />Fundamental questions in cognitive science concern the origins and nature of the units that compose visual experience. Here, we investigate the capacity to individuate and store information about non-solid portions, asking in particular whether free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) quantify portions of a non-solid substance presented in discrete pouring actions. When presented with portions of carrot pieces poured from a cup into opaque boxes, rhesus picked the box with the greatest number of portions for comparisons of 1 vs. 2, 2 vs. 3, and 3 vs. 4, but not for comparisons of 4 vs. 5 and 3 vs. 6. Additional experiments indicate that rhesus based their decisions on both the number of portions and the total amount of food. These results show that the capacity to individuate non-solid portions is not unique to humans, and does not depend on structures of natural language. Further, the fact that rhesus' ability to represent non-solid portions is constrained by the same 4-item limit typically ascribed to the system of parallel individuation that operates over solid objects suggests that the visual system recruits common working memory processes for retaining information about solid objects and non-solid portions. We discuss our results with respect to theories of visual processing, as well as to the role that the human language faculty may have played in both the evolution and development of quantification. Free-ranging rhesus monkeys spontaneously individuate and enumerate small numbers of non-solid portions. Justin N Wood Marc D Hauser David D Glynn David Barner doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.01.004 Cognition (20 March 2007) 2007-04-03T16:00:10-00:00 2007 Cognition 0010-0277 evolution language macaques number representation http://www.citeulike.org/user/dep/article/1366461 <i>Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 2. (September 2004), pp. 85-117.</i><br /><br />In earlier work we have shown that adults, infants, and cotton-top tamarin monkeys are capable of computing the probability with which syllables occur in particular orders in rapidly presented streams of human speech, and of using these probabilities to group adjacent syllables into word-like units. We have also investigated adults' learning of regularities among elements that are not adjacent, and have found strong selectivities in their ability to learn various kinds of non-adjacent regularities. In the present paper we investigate the learning of these same non-adjacent regularities in tamarin monkeys, using the same materials and familiarization methods. Three types of languages were constructed. In one, words were formed by statistical regularities between non-adjacent syllables. Words contained predictable relations between syllables 1 and 3; syllable 2 varied. In a second type of language, words were formed by statistical regularities between non-adjacent segments. Words contained predictable relations between consonants; the vowels varied. In a third type of language, also formed by regularities between non-adjacent segments, words contained predictable relations between vowels; the consonants varied. Tamarin monkeys were exposed to these languages in the same fashion as adults (21 min of exposure to a continuous speech stream) and were then tested in a playback paradigm measuring spontaneous looking (no reinforcement). Adult subjects learned the second and third types of language easily, but failed to learn the first. However, tamarin monkeys showed a different pattern, learning the first and third type of languages but not the second. These differences held up over multiple replications, using different sounds instantiating each of the patterns. These results suggest differences among learners in the elementary units perceived in speech (syllables, consonants, and vowels) and/or the distance over which such units can be related, and therefore differences among learners in the types of patterned regularities they can acquire. Such studies with tamarins open interesting questions about the perceptual and computational capacities of human learners that may be essential for language acquisition, and how they may differ from those of non-human primates. Learning at a distance II. Statistical learning of non-adjacent dependencies in a non-human primate Elissa Newport Marc Hauser Geertrui Spaepen Richard Aslin doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2003.12.002 Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 2. (September 2004), pp. 85-117. 2007-06-05T22:10:05-00:00 2004 Cognitive Psychology 49 2 85 117 language learning nonhuman primate