Spatial Problem-solving Task Research Articles

Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate the Performance of Horses (Equus caballus) in a Spatial Problem-Solving Task.

Simple SummaryHorses were confronted with a spatial problem-solving task in which they had to detour an obstacle. Individuals that observed a human demonstrating how to solve the task did not solve the task more often or faster compared with a control group without demonstration. However, horses of both the treatment and control group detoured the obstacle faster over trials. Together with previous research, our results illustrate that horses do not seem to rely on social information when solving a spatial problem-solving task.Horses’ ability to adapt to new environments and to acquire new information plays an important role in handling and training. Social learning in particular would be very adaptive for horses as it enables them to flexibly adjust to new environments. In the context of horse handling, social learning from humans has been rarely investigated but could help to facilitate management practices. We assessed the impact of human demonstration on the spatial problem-solving abilities of horses during a detour task. In this task, a bucket with a food reward was placed behind a double-detour barrier and 16 horses were allocated to two test groups of 8 horses each. One group received a human demonstration of how to solve the spatial task while the other group received no demonstration. We found that horses did not solve the detour task more often or faster with human demonstration. However, both test groups improved rapidly over trials. Our results suggest that horses prefer to use individual rather than social information when solving a spatial problem-solving task.

Do people gesture more when instructed to?

Does being instructed to gesture encourage those with low gesture rates to produce more gestures? If participants do gesture more when asked to, do they produce the same kinds of gestures? Does this vary as a function of the type of discourse being produced? We asked participants to take part in three tasks, a quasi-conversational task, a spatial problem solving task, and a narrative task, in two phases. In the first they received no instruction, and in the second they were asked to gesture. The instruction to gesture did not change gesture rate or gesture type across phases. We suggest that while explicitly asking participants to gesture may not always achieve higher gesture rates, it also does not negatively impact natural behavior.

Goats learn socially from humans in a spatial problem-solving task

Domestication drives changes in animal cognition and behaviour. In particular, the capacity of dogs to socially learn from humans is considered a key outcome of how domestication shaped the canid brain. However, systematic evidence for social learning from humans in other domestic species is lacking and makes general conclusions about how domestication has affected cognitive abilities difficult. We assessed spatial and social problem-solving abilities in goats, Capra hircus , using a detour task, in which food was placed behind an inward or outward V-shaped hurdle. Goats performed better in the outward than in the inward detour without human demonstration. Importantly, a single presentation by a human solving the inward detour resulted in goats solving the task faster compared to the inward detour without demonstration. Furthermore, eight of nine subjects that received a demonstration used the same route as the demonstrator in the subsequent trial. Thus, goats learn socially from humans. This provides strong evidence for social learning from humans in a domestic species other than dogs.

Young girls’ spatial and arithmetic performance: The mediating role of maternal supportive interactions during joint spatial problem solving

The present study addresses girls’ (6–7-year-olds; N=162) early spatial and arithmetic skills within the context of learning environments provided by their mothers. The study was designed to determine the relationship between maternal supportive interactions on a joint origami spatial problem-solving task and their first grade daughters’ spatial and arithmetic skills. During home visits the mothers and daughters were videotaped jointly solving origami tasks with maternal supportive interactions assessed through ratings of maternal stimulation of cognitive development and maternal quality of assistance; the girls were separately assessed in school on spatial and arithmetic skills. Using structural equation modeling, the main findings were (1) maternal supportive interactions on a mother–child origami task mediated the relation between mothers’ spatial skills/educational level and their daughters’ spatial skills and (2) their daughters’ spatial skills in turn mediated the relation between quality of maternal supportive spatial interactions and the daughters’ arithmetic achievement. The present findings indicate the importance of early maternal supportive interactions relating to spatial problem solving for girls’ spatial and arithmetic achievement. Furthermore, all pathways linking girls’ home environments and arithmetic skills were mediated through the girls’ spatial skills, suggesting that for young girls, development of early spatial skills may be important for effective arithmetic learning.

The Tower of London Spatial Problem-Solving Task: Enhancing Clinical and Research Implementation

Since its development in 1982, The Tower of London (TOL; Shallice, 1982) spatial problem-solving task has been increasingly employed in test batteries of executive functions. This task has served as a rich source of information on preparation, planning and processing, but a number of issues remain unaddressed in the literature: (1) the problem structure, or problem space of the task, (2) the impact of modifications from the original, Shallice TOL, and (3) the variety of performance measures that can be derived from the TOL. We present here an overview of these issues in the hope that it may lead to a more effective and reasoned use of the TOL task by clinical and nonclinical investigators, alike.

Problem solving and logical reasoning in the macaque monkey

This study focuses on the performances of monkeys in a spatial problem-solving task that involves working memory. Two monkeys had to find, by trial-and-error, the touching order of 2 or 3 targets in a set of 3 or 4 fixed spatial targets. When a solution was found and performed 6 times, the order was changed and the animal had to resume a new search within the same set of targets. Thus, in a training session, many searches (up to 60) could be initialised. The data show that the animals conducted a methodical search for the hidden order and found the solution in a minimal number of trials. We conclude that the monkey is able to construct complex cognitive structures, similar to logical reasoning, to solve spatial problems of this type.

An Investigation of Vetrbal Spatial Functioning in Chronic Alcoholics

The mild generalized brain dysfunction hypothesis of alcoholic impairment predicts that, as a group, alcoholics will be impaired on both right- and left-hemisphere spatial functioning tests. A verbal-spatial problem-solving task (Luria, 1980) composed of explicitly spatial problems and comparative problems was developed and administered along with a well-known visual spatial problem-solving task (Block Design) to 24 sober male alcoholics and 24 peer controls. As expected, alcoholics performed more poorly and made more configurational errors than controls on Block Design. In accord with the mild generalized hypothesis, alcoholics performed more poorly than peer controls on the more explicitly spatial verbal problems, but not on the easier comparative problems.

Role of the medial and lateral septum in a variable goal spatial problem solving task

Rats with lesions to the medial (MS) or lateral septal (LS) nuclei were compared to normal controls (CNT) in the acquisition of a spatial working memory task. In this task, animals were first allowed to explore the unbaited three-table apparatus before being fed on one of the two possible goal tables. Animals were then tested on their ability to return to the table where they just had been fed. Only rats with medial septal damage were clearly impaired on this problem, an impairment that dissipated over days. In contrast, the performance of LS rats was not significantly different from controls. During the second phase of the experiment, the same animals received either atropine sulphate (50 mg/kg, IP), atropine methylnitrate (50 mg/kg, IP), or an equivalent volume of saline. Atropine sulphate produced a sharp decrease in performance by all subjects. Meanwhile, atropine methylnitrate produced a mild temporary deficit only in LS rats. Overall, these results confirm that the medial septum plays a crucial role in the acquisition of problem solving. In addition, these results also suggest that the lateral septum may play a possible role in some form of spatial behavior easily disrupted by atropine methylnitrate.

Spatial problem-solving in a wheel-shaped maze: quantitative and qualitative analyses of the behavioural changes following damage to the hippocampus in the rat

The behaviour of sham-operated rats and rats with damage to the dorsal hippocampus was compared in a complex spatial problem-solving task using a 'hub-spoke-rim' wheel type maze. Compared to the classical Olton 8-arm radial maze and Morris water maze, this apparatus presents the animal with a series of possible alternative routes both direct and indirect to the goal (food). The task included 3 main stages: exploration, feeding and testing, as do the classic problem-solving tasks. During exploration, hippocampal rats were found to be more active than sham rats. Nevertheless, they displayed habituation and a relatively efficient circumnavigation, though, in both cases, different from those of sham rats. During test trials, hippocampal rats were characterized as being less accurate, making more errors than sham rats. Nevertheless, both groups increased their accuracy of first choices over trials. The qualitative analyses of test trial performance indicated that hippocampal rats were less accurate in terms of the initial error's deviation from the goal, and less efficient in terms of corrective behaviour than sham rats which used either the periphery or the spokes to attain economically the goal. Surprisingly, hippocampal rats were not limited to a taxon type orientation but learned to use the periphery, a tendency which developed over time. Seemingly, for sham rats, the problem-solving process took the form of updating information during transit. For hippocampal rats, the use of periphery reflected both an ability to discriminate its usefulness in reaching the goal via a taxis type behaviour, and some sparing of ability to generalize the closeness and the location of the goal. These results, especially the strategic correction patterns, are discussed in the light of Sutherland and Rudy's 'configurational association theory'.

Spatial problem solving by rats: Exploration and cognitive maps

Two experiments were performed in an attempt to examine the contribution of the exploratory experience to performance on Maier's 3-table spatial problem-solving task. In the first experiment, the runway configurations were altered between exploration and testing. It was found that following an initial impairment animals exposed to the altered runway configurations could perform as well as animals not confronted with an altered runway configuration on the test trial. In the second experiment, animals were allowed to explore only elements of the problem space. Exploration of either the runways only or the tables only led to unsuccessful performance on the 3-table task. The results of both experiments were related to current theory of cognitive mapping.