Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author’s Abstract

Using well-established paradigms for studying animal perception and memory, researchers have begun to ask whether animals can monitor the status of their knowledge in a behavioural task—whether they know what they know. Generally, such metacognitive ability is tested by giving animals the opportunity to avoid (or 'escape') a test of memory or perceptual discrimination. The pattern of escapes can then be analyzed in a number of ways, including whether the subject escapes more often from difficult tests, where a correct answer is less likely, than from easy tests. A number of non-metacognitive strategies can be used by animals in these experiments, however, and it is important to control carefully for alternative explanations. Moreover, only rigorous, controlled tests will determine whether current suggestions of species differences in metacognitive abilities are correct.