RESUMEN
Maze studies have provided substantial information about nonhuman cognition, such as insights on navigational strategies, spatial memory, and choice discriminations. This knowledge can aid in how we understand the foraging strategies of many animals, particularly understudied and endangered species, such as the Guatemalan beaded lizard (Heloderma charlesbogerti). These actively foraging lizards rely on chemoreception to locate prey, but it is unknown to what extent they engage in olfaction and vomerolfaction to hunt and navigate their environment. We investigated how Guatemalan beaded lizards moved through a physical maze. When navigating an eight-arm radial maze with all arms baited, lizards tended to turn into the immediately adjacent arm in a single direction, similar to other reptiles that have been tested in radial arm mazes. In a T-maze, the lizards had to discriminate between arms that contained scent and no-scent from a distance. They were generally unable to choose the baited (correct) arm at levels greater than chance, indicating an inability for this discrimination. With the addition of a scent trail, however, all lizards chose the baited arm at levels significantly above chance, and this increased accuracy was correlated with increased latency to make the arm choice. The lizards also demonstrated a decreased rate of tongue flicking as proximity to reward increased. Guatemalan beaded lizards can efficiently navigate a radial arm maze and can successfully use vomerolfaction with substrate-borne cues to locate prey, but they appear to have minimal olfaction abilities when sensing from a distance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
RESUMEN
The ways in which humans can support good welfare for animals in their care is an ongoing subject of debate: some place emphasis on the animals' physical health; others, on animals' ability to live "natural lives"; and others on animals' affective states or psychological wellbeing. Recently, there has been an increase in interest in how an animal's ability to exercise control over its environment could impact their welfare. In this article, we take the stance that the relevant aspects of the first two concepts of animal welfare (physical health, natural lives) are largely addressed when an animal's psychological wellbeing is prioritized. Through that lens, we review the current state of the literature regarding the psychology of control, and the intersection between choice, control, and welfare. We clarify terms to support future work, and propose future directions that could lead to a better understanding of the psychological benefits of choice and control and ultimately inform animal care decisions.
RESUMEN
Given the choice, people are often drawn toward more options over fewer options in decision-making scenarios. However, mounting evidence indicates that sometimes, choosing from large arrays can result in suboptimal outcomes. The tendency to be overwhelmed, regretful, or less satisfied with a choice when there are many options to choose from is called choice overload. This effect has been well-studied in adult humans, but comparative research, such as with nonhuman primates, is lacking, despite the fact that such choice behavior may be related to general aspects of cognition that underlie behaviors such as foraging in the wild. In addition, research with monkeys can shed light on whether choice overload is a human-unique phenomenon that may be driven by sociocultural factors, or whether this effect may be shared more broadly among mammals. This experiment tested whether monkeys were susceptible to choice overload effects by using a computerized paradigm in which monkey subjects could choose from three, six, or nine task options. No evidence of choice overload was found for monkeys, although this may have been due to methodological limitations that are described.