Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:08:57 BST CiteULike: dep Redford http://www.citeulike.org/user/dep/author/Redford CiteULike.org en-gb Copyright © 2004-2008 citeulike.org http://www.citeulike.org/user/dep/article/1981581 <i>J Exp Psychol Gen, Vol. 135, No. 2. (May 2006), pp. 282-297.</i><br /><br />Although researchers are exploring animals' capacity for monitoring their states of uncertainty, the use of some paradigms allows the criticism that animals map avoidance responses to error-causing stimuli not because of uncertainty monitored but because of feedback signals and stimulus aversion. The authors addressed this criticism with an uncertainty-monitoring task in which participants completed blocks of trials with feedback deferred so that they could not associate reinforcement signals to particular stimuli or stimulus-response pairs. Humans and 1 of 2 monkeys were able to make cognitive, decisional uncertainty responses that were independent of feedback or reinforcement history within a task. This finding unifies the comparative literature on uncertainty monitoring. The dissociation of performance from reinforcement has theoretical implications, and the deferred-feedback technique has many applications. Dissociating uncertainty responses and reinforcement signals in the comparative study of uncertainty monitoring. JD Smith MJ Beran JS Redford DA Washburn doi:10.1037/0096-3445.135.2.282 J Exp Psychol Gen, Vol. 135, No. 2. (May 2006), pp. 282-297. 2007-11-25T17:18:54-00:00 2006 J Exp Psychol Gen 0096-3445 135 2 282 297 human macaques nonhuman reinforcement uncertainty