Spontaneous metacognition in rhesus monkeys

Metacognition is the ability to think about thinking. Although monitoring and controlling one's knowledge is a key feature of human cognition, its evolutionary origins are debated. In the current study, we examined whether rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta; N = 120) could make metacognitive inferences in a one-shot decision. Each monkey experienced one of four conditions, observing a human appearing to hide a food reward in an apparatus consisting of either one or two tubes. The monkeys tended to search the correct location when they observed this baiting event, but engaged in information seeking-by peering into a center location where they could check both potential hiding spots-if their view had been occluded and information seeking was possible. The monkeys only occasionally approached the center when information seeking was not possible. These results show that monkeys spontaneously use information about their own knowledge states to solve naturalistic foraging problems, and thus provi...元认知（Metacognition）是指对思维本身进行思考的能力。尽管对自身知识的监控与调控是人类认知的核心特征之一，但其演化起源仍存在争议。本研究旨在探究120只恒河猴（Macaca mulatta; N = 120）能否在单次决策中完成元认知推理。每只恒河猴均参与四种实验条件之一：观察实验人员将食物奖励藏于由单根或两根管道组成的实验装置中。当猴子亲眼目睹该藏食过程时，它们通常会直接前往正确位置搜寻；但若视线被遮挡且可进行信息搜寻时，它们会通过窥探中心位置来查看两处潜在藏食点以寻求信息。而当无法进行信息搜寻时，猴子极少会前往中心位置。上述结果表明，猴子会自发利用自身知识状态相关的信息来解决自然觅食场景下的问题，由此为...