[论文解读] Object permanence in newborn chicks is robust against opposing evidence

Justin N. Wood, Tomer Ullman+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Feb 22, 2024

Animal Behavior and Reproduction被引用 36

一句话总结

该论文表明，在新生雏鸡的对象恒常性在虚拟环境中，即使对象连续性非标准，也保持成立，暗示胎儿期发育和对相反证据的鲁棒性。

ABSTRACT

Newborn animals have advanced perceptual skills at birth, but the nature of this initial knowledge is unknown. Is initial knowledge flexible, continuously adapting to the statistics of experience? Or can initial knowledge be rigid and robust to change, even in the face of opposing evidence? We address this question through controlled-rearing experiments on newborn chicks. First, we reared chicks in an impoverished virtual world, where objects never occluded one another, and found that chicks still succeed on object permanence tasks. Second, we reared chicks in a virtual world in which objects teleported from one location to another while out of view: an unnatural event that violates the continuity of object motion. Despite seeing thousands of these violations of object permanence, and not a single non-violation, the chicks behaved as if object permanence were true, exhibiting the same behavior as chicks reared with natural object permanence events. We conclude that object permanence develops prenatally and is robust to change from opposing evidence.

研究动机与目标

• 研究新生雏鸡初始对象恒常性知识是灵活的还是鲁棒的。
• 在受控养育设置中，在贫乏且非连续的视觉统计条件下测试对象恒常性。
• 确定胎儿期对象恒常性知识在相反证据下是否仍然存在。

提出的方法

• 将雏鸡养育在一个贫乏的虚拟世界中，其中对象从不遮挡彼此。
• 将雏鸡养育在一个对象被传送出视野的虚拟世界中，违反运动连续性。
• 将行为与在自然对象恒常性事件下养育的雏鸡进行比较。
• 测量对象恒常性任务的表现以评估鲁棒性。

实验结果

研究问题

• RQ1 新生雏鸡的初始对象恒常性知识是否具有灵活性并能被经验更新？
• RQ2 在暴露于表观对象运动连续性被破坏时，胎儿期对象恒常性是否仍然存在？
• RQ3 对象恒常性在早期发展中对相反证据是否具有鲁棒性？

主要发现

• 雏鸡即使在贫乏的虚拟世界中也能完成对象恒常性任务。
• 雏鸡的行为似乎认为对象恒常性成立，尽管有数千次传送导致连续性被破坏。
• 对象恒常性似乎在胎儿期发展，并且对相反证据保持鲁棒性。