Editing Animal cognition (section)

=== Attention ===
Much of what is happening in the world at any moment is irrelevant to current behavior. [[Attention]] refers to mental processes that select relevant information, inhibit irrelevant information, and switch among these as the situation demands.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Smith EE, Kosslyn SM | date = 2007 | title = Cognitive Psychology: Mind and Brain | publisher = Pearson Prentice Hall}}</ref>  Often the selective process is tuned before relevant information appears; such expectation makes for rapid selection of key stimuli when they become available. A large body of research has explored the way attention and expectation affect the behavior of non-human animals, and much of this work suggests that attention operates in birds, mammals and reptiles in much the same way that it does in humans.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Blough DS | date = 2006 | chapter = Reaction-time explorations of visual attention, perception, and decision in pigeons. | veditors = Wasserman EA, Zentall TR | title = Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence' | pages = 89–105 | location = New York | publisher = Oxford University Press}}</ref>

==== Selective Learning ====
Animals trained to discriminate between two stimuli, say black versus white, can be said to attend to the "brightness dimension", but this says little about whether this dimension is selected in preference to others. More enlightenment comes from experiments that allow the animal to choose from several alternatives.  For example, several studies have shown that performance is better on, for example, a color discrimination (e.g. blue vs green) after the animal has learned another color discrimination (e.g. red vs orange) than it is after training on a different dimension such as an X shape versus an O shape. The reverse effect happens after training on forms. Thus, the earlier learning appears to affect which dimension, color or form, the animal will attend to.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Mackintosh NJ | date = 1983 | title = Conditioning and Associative Learning | location = New York | publisher = Oxford University Press}}</ref>

Other experiments have shown that after animals have learned to respond to one aspect of the environment responsiveness to other aspects is suppressed.  In "blocking", for example, an animal is conditioned to respond to one stimulus ("A") by pairing that stimulus with reward or punishment.  After the animal responds consistently to A, a second stimulus ("B") accompanies A on additional training trials.  Later tests with the B stimulus alone elicit little response, suggesting that learning about B has been blocked by prior learning about A.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Kamin LJ | date = 1969 | chapter = Predictability, surprise, attention, and conditioning | veditors = Campbell BA, Church RM | title = Punishment and Aversive Behavior | location = New York | publisher = Appleton-Century-Crofts | pages = 279–296}}</ref>   This result supports the hypothesis that stimuli are neglected if they fail to provide new information.  Thus, in the experiment just cited,  the animal failed to attend to B because B added no information to that supplied by A.  If true, this interpretation is an important insight into attentional processing, but this conclusion remains uncertain because blocking and several related phenomena can be explained by models of conditioning that do not invoke attention.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Mackintosh NJ | date = 1994 | title = Animal Learning and Cognition | location = San Diego | publisher = Academic Press}}</ref>

==== Divided attention ====
Attention is a limited resource and is not a none-or-all response:  the more attention devoted to one aspect of the environment, the less is available for others.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Zentall TR | title = Selective and divided attention in animals | journal = Behavioural Processes | volume = 69 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–15 | date = April 2005 | pmid = 15795066 | doi = 10.1016/j.beproc.2005.01.004 | s2cid = 24601938}}</ref>  A number of experiments have studied this in animals. In one experiment, a tone and a light are presented simultaneously to pigeons.  The pigeons gain a reward only by choosing the correct combination of the two stimuli (e.g. a high frequency tone together with a yellow light).  The birds perform well at this task, presumably by dividing attention between the two stimuli.  When only one of the stimuli varies and the other is presented at its rewarded value, discrimination improves on the variable stimulus but discrimination on the alternative stimulus worsens.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Blough DS | title = Attention shifts in a maintained discrimination | journal = Science | volume = 166 | issue = 3901 | pages = 125–6 | date = October 1969 | pmid = 5809588 | doi = 10.1126/science.166.3901.125 | bibcode = 1969Sci...166..125B | s2cid = 33256491}}</ref>  These outcomes are consistent with the notion that attention is a limited resource that can be more or less focused among incoming stimuli.

==== Visual search and attentional priming ====
As noted above, the function of attention is to select information that is of special use to the animal.  Visual search typically calls for this sort of selection, and search tasks have been used extensively in both humans and animals to determine the characteristics of attentional selection and the factors that control it.

Experimental research on visual search in animals was initially prompted by field observations published by Luc Tinbergen (1960).<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Tinbergen L | year = 1960 | title = The natural control of insects in pine woods: I. Factors influencing the intensity of predation by songbirds | journal = Archives Néerlandaises de Zoologie | volume = 13 | pages = 265–343 | doi = 10.1163/036551660X00053}}</ref> Tinbergen observed that birds are selective when foraging for insects. For example, he found that birds tended to catch the same type of insect repeatedly even though several types were available. Tinbergen suggested that this prey selection was caused by an attentional bias that improved detection of one type of insect while suppressing detection of others.  This "attentional priming" is commonly said to result from a pretrial activation of a mental representation of the attended object, which Tinbergen called a "searching image".

Tinbergen's field observations on priming have been supported by a number of experiments. For example, Pietrewicz and Kamil (1977, 1979)<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Pietrewicz AT, Kamil AC | title = Visual Detection of Cryptic Prey by Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) | journal = Science | volume = 195 | issue = 4278 | pages = 580–2 | date = February 1977 | pmid = 17732294 | doi = 10.1126/science.195.4278.580 | url = http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=biosciaviancog | bibcode = 1977Sci...195..580P | s2cid = 10858793| url-access = subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Pietrewicz AT, Kamil AC | title = Search Image Formation in the Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) | journal = Science | volume = 204 | issue = 4399 | pages = 1332–3 | date = June 1979 | pmid = 17813172 | doi = 10.1126/science.204.4399.1332 | url = http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=bioscibehavior | bibcode = 1979Sci...204.1332P | s2cid = 14809014| url-access = subscription }}</ref> presented blue jays with pictures of tree trunks upon which rested either a moth of species A, a moth of species B, or no moth at all.  The birds were rewarded for pecks at a picture showing a moth. Crucially, the probability with which a particular species of moth was detected was higher after repeated trials with that species  (e.g. A, A, A,...) than it was after a mixture of trials (e.g. A, B, B, A, B, A, A...).  These results suggest again that sequential encounters with an object can establish an attentional predisposition to see the object.

Another way to produce attentional priming in search is to provide an advance signal that is associated with the target.  For example, if a person hears a song sparrow he or she may be predisposed to detect a song sparrow in a shrub, or among other birds.  A number of experiments have reproduced this effect in animal subjects.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Blough PM | year = 1989 | title = Attentional priming and visual search in pigeons |journal=[[Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition]] | volume = 17 | issue = 4| pages = 292–298 | doi = 10.1037/0097-7403.17.3.292 | pmid = 2794871}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Kamil AC, Bond AB | date = 2006 | chapter = Selective attention, priming, and foraging behavior. | veditors = Wasserman EA, Zentall TR | title = Comparative Cognition: Experimental Exploration of Animal Intelligence | location = New York | publisher = Oxford University Press}}</ref>

Still other experiments have explored nature of stimulus factors that affect the speed and accuracy of visual search.  For example, the time taken to find a single target increases as the number of items in the visual field increases.  This rise in reaction time is steep if the distracters are similar to the target, less steep if they are dissimilar, and may not occur if the distracters are very different from the target in form or color.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Blough DS, Blough PM | date = 1990 | chapter = Reaction-time assessments of visual processes in pigeons. | veditors = Berkley M, Stebbins W | title = Comparative perception | pages = 245–276 | location = New York | publisher = Wiley}}</ref>