bagvette

Grosenick L, Clement TS, Fernald RD.
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford,
California, 94305, USA. logang@stanford.edu

Transitive inference (TI) involves using known relationships to deduce
unknown ones (for example, using A > B and B > C to infer A > C), and is
thus essential to logical reasoning. First described as a developmental
milestone in children, TI has since been reported in nonhuman primates,
rats and birds. Still, how animals acquire and represent
transitive relationships and why such abilities might have evolved
remain open problems. Here we show that male fish (Astatotilapia burtoni)
can successfully make inferences on a hierarchy implied by
pairwise fights between rival males. These fish learned
the implied hierarchy vicariously (as 'bystanders'), by watching fights
between rivals arranged around them in separate tank units.
Our findings show that fish use TI when trained on socially relevant stimuli,
and that they can make such inferences by using indirect information alone.
Further, these bystanders seem to have both spatial
and featural representations related to rival abilities,
which they can use to make correct inferences depending on
what kind of information is available to them. Beyond extending TI to fish
and experimentally demonstrating indirect TI learning in animals,
these results indicate that a universal mechanism underlying TI is unlikely.
Rather, animals probably use multiple domain-specific representations
adapted to different social and ecological pressures that they encounter
during the course of their natural lives.

PMID: 17251980 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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酷魚!! 會邏輯思考 >w
不過真的找很久ㄟpaper = =
曾志朗真是不負責報導 好機車 = =a