Development of Spatial Attention in Chimpanzees (Pan troglidytes) I : A study of 'Inhibition of Return'
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: Inhibition of return (IOR) is the decreased tendency to orient toward a previously attended spatial location, possible indicative of an attentional bias to novel locations. IOR is indexed by the increased latency in responding to a target at a previously cued position relative to its contralateral position. This phenomenon and the process of its development were examined in two 5-year-old chimpanzees, two adult chimpanzees, and two adult humans (control). The animals and humans were tested on two detection tasks: single-cue and double-cue tasks. In the single-cue task, after flashing a peripheral cue on the left or right side of a display, a target was presented at the ipsilateral or contralateral position with varying cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony. The double-cue task was identical to the single-cue task except that a central cue was flashed immediately after the peripheral cue presentation. In the single-cue task, latencies to the ipsilateral target were longer than to the contralateral target in child chimpanzees and adult humans, which is indicative of IOR. However, no IOR was found in adult chimpanzees, in which latencies to the ipsilateral target were shorter than to the contralateral target in the double cue task. These results suggest differences in the developmental course of spatial attention between humans and chimpanzees.
Language: Japanese
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7207928619