Reference - Detail
| RRC ID | 71489 |
|---|---|
| Author | Liu N, Iijima A, Iwata Y, Ohashi K, Fujisawa N, Sasaoka T, Hasegawa I. |
| Title | Mental construction of object symbols from meaningless elements by Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). |
| Journal | Sci Rep |
| Abstract |
When writing an object's name, humans mentally construct its spelling. This capacity critically depends on use of the dual-structured linguistic system, in which meaningful words are represented by combinations of meaningless letters. Here we search for the evolutionary origin of this capacity in primates by designing dual-structured bigram symbol systems where different combinations of meaningless elements represent different objects. Initially, we trained Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) in an object-bigram symbolization task and in a visually-guided bigram construction task. Subsequently, we conducted a probe test using a symbolic bigram construction task. From the initial trial of the probe test, the Japanese macaques could sequentially choose the two elements of a bigram that was not actually seen but signified by a visually presented object. Moreover, the animals' spontaneous choice order bias, developed through the visually-guided bigram construction learning, was immediately generalized to the symbolic bigram construction test. Learning of dual-structured symbols by the macaques possibly indicates pre-linguistic adaptations for the ability of mentally constructing symbols in the common ancestors of humans and Old World monkeys. |
| Volume | 12(1) |
| Pages | 3566 |
| Published | 2022-3-4 |
| DOI | 10.1038/s41598-022-07563-z |
| PII | 10.1038/s41598-022-07563-z |
| PMID | 35246592 |
| PMC | PMC8897398 |
| MeSH | Animals Learning Macaca* Macaca fuscata* |
| IF | 3.998 |
| Altmetric score |
オルトメトリクス指標項目
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| The most frequently cited source | X(Twitter) |
| Total number of mentions | 3 |
| Altmetric score changes over past 6months | 0.0 |
| Resource | |
| Japanese macaques | |