Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RootsofWorkingMemory (A comparison of working memory characteristics in monkeys, apes, and humans.)
Reporting period: 2020-09-14 to 2022-09-13
Working memory is a central component of complex human cognitive abilities such as learning, language comprehension, planning, reasoning, and cognitive control [1]. It allows for a limited amount of information to be kept available for processing in the absence of sustained sensory input, and the proficiency with which individuals do so is positively correlated with individual differences in scores of fluid intelligence [2,3]. Although working memory has been identified as central to human intelligent behavior [4], little is known about its evolutionary origins and our understanding of how it operates in nonhuman primates is only beginning to emerge [5]. Yet many of the aspects of human behavior that have been suggested to be unique adaptations in our species, such as social understanding, abstract reasoning, and future planning, rely on working memory - to keep a goal in mind in the face of distraction and formulate mental plans and scenarios. Thus, a comprehensive comparative study of working memory could have wide-reaching implications for the quest to understand what makes the human mind unique. To date working memory in nonhumans has received far less research effort than comparisons of more domain-specific skills. In this proposal I designed a program of work aimed at bringing it under systematic comparative study. The importance of this project lies in its potential for understanding the origins of human complex cognition. The overall objetives were to carry out a series of projects investigating three critical aspects of working memory and comparing them across three separate primate species : humans, chimpanzees, and capuchin monkeys.
The proposal was voluntarily terminated roughly halfway through the two years due to the researcher obtaining a new job. However, the researcher did manage to complete 1 project investigating mental rotation abilities in capuchin monkeys, begin data collection on a second project investigating mental rotation in children, begin data collection for a third project investigating working memory in human children, and also begin data collection for a fourth project investigating working memory in capuchin monkeys. The only main results to be reported on would be from project 1 investigating mental rotation abilities in capuchin monkeys. The researcher completed 4 experiments for this project. The results indicated a significant difference in performance of capuchin monkeys compared to human children. Capuchin monkeys were not able to show the same degree of mental rotation as children in the intial experiment, and follow up experiments confirmed that the monkeys were not able to trained to do so either. These results likely represent a real cognitive difference between capuchin monkeys and children. Preliminary data from Project 3 investigating working memory in children showed that children perform qualitatively similar to adults in a working memory task, but may have a quantitative difference. These results would be come meaningful with comparison to capuchin monkey data, once that project is completed by a collaborator of the researcher after he leaves. The results from Project 1 will be written up for publication in a peer-reviewed journal as soon as possible, and once the other projects have been completed by the collaborator, they will also be written up for publication.
Progress beyond state of the art includes setting up touch-screen computer set ups for the capuchin monkeys to work on and for the public patrons of the zoo to obseve while the monkeys are participating. So far, the results of the projects have not been published so the potential impacts have not yet been realized. However, once all of the projets are completed by the collaborators of the researcher, they will all be published and disseminated resulting in at least 4 publications. The wider societal implications of the project so far have been on interactions with zoo patrons. Every research session completed at the zoo had patrons able to watch from above and learn from a brochure about the reseaerch being done with the primates. Having patrons observe the animals participating in research causes them to connect with the animals and hoefully engage in conscious consuerism behaviors such as being cognizant of not purchasing items with unsustainably sourced palm-oil to save primate habitats in the wild.