Data from: Flexible information-seeking in chimpanzees
Data files
Jul 25, 2024 version files 137.76 KB
Abstract
Humans can flexibly use metacognition to monitor their own knowledge and strategically acquire new information when needed. While humans can deploy these skills across a variety of contexts, most evidence for metacognition in animals has focused on simple situations, such as seeking out information about the location of food. Here, we examine the flexibility, breadth, and limits of this skill in chimpanzees. We tested semi-free-ranging chimpanzees on a novel task where they could seek information by standing up to peer into different containers. In Study 1, we tested n = 47 chimpanzees to assess if chimpanzees would spontaneously engage in information-seeking without prior experience, as well as to characterize individual variation in this propensity. We found that many chimpanzees engaged in information-seeking with minimal experience, and that younger chimpanzees and females were more likely to do so. In two subsequent studies, we then further tested chimpanzees who initially showed robust information-seeking on new variations of this task, to disentangle the cognitive processing shaping their behaviors. In Study 2, we examined how a subset of n = 12 chimpanzees applied these skills to seek information about the location versus the identity of rewards, and found that chimpanzees were equally adept at seeking out location and identity information. In Study 3, we examined whether a subset of n = 6 chimpanzees could apply these skills to make more efficacious decisions when faced with uncertainty about reward payoffs. Chimpanzees were able to use information-seeking to resolve risk and choose more optimally when faced with uncertain payoffs, although they often also engaged in information-seeking when it was not strictly necessary. These results identify core features of flexible metacognition that chimpanzees share with humans, as well as constraints that may represent key evolutionary shifts in human cognition.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hqbzkh1rn
Study Authors: A.G. Rosati, E. Felsche, M.F. Cole, R. Atencia, & J. Rukundo
Contact: rosati@umich.edu
Description of the data and file structure
This data set consists of three data files (.xlsx format) with trial-by-trial data for the three different experimental studies reported in this work.
For each file, there is a detailed key tab in the file defining each specific variable reported in the main data tab and explaining the codes for that variable.
As noted in the relevant variables, NAs in these files indicate no relevant score for that specific dependent variable (e.g., if the chimpanzee did not perform a certain response, there is no associated latency measure for their response), or that the specific independent variable coded in the column was not relevant for that trial. The specific files are:
1. DATA Rosati et al Chimpanzee Information-Seeking Study 1. This file comprises the trial-by-trial data for the first study examining spontaneous information-seeking in chimpanzees.
2. DATA Rosati et al Chimpanzee Information-Seeking Study 2. This file comprises the trial-by-trial data for the second study examining information-seeking in chimpanzees for location versus identity information.
3. DATA Rosati et al Chimpanzee Information-Seeking Study 3. This file comprises the trial-by-trial data for the third study examining information-seeking in chimpanzees when faced with uncertainty.