The shifting shelf task: a new, non-verbal measure for attentional set shifting

Eva Reindl; C. J. Völter; Zeynep Civelek; L. Duncan; Z. Lugosi; E. Felsche; E. Herrmann; J. Call; Amanda Seed

doi:10.1098/rspb.2022.1496

The shifting shelf task: a new, non-verbal measure for attentional set shifting

Eva Reindl, C. J. Völter, Zeynep Civelek, L. Duncan, Z. Lugosi, E. Felsche, E. Herrmann, J. Call, Amanda Seed

Applied Health Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Attentional set shifting is a core ingredient of cognition, allowing for fast adaptation to changes in the environment. How this skill compares between humans and other primates is not well known. We examined performance of 3- to 5-year-old children and chimpanzees on a new attentional set shifting task. We presented participants with two shelves holding the same set of four boxes. To choose the correct box on each shelf, one has to switch attention depending on which shelf one is currently presented with. Experiment 1 (forty-six 3- to 5-year olds, predominantly European White) established content validity, showing that the majority of errors were specific switching mistakes indicating failure to shift attention. Experiment 2 (one hundred and seventy-eight 3- to 6-year olds, predominantly European White) showed that older children made fewer mistakes, but if mistakes were made, a larger proportion were switching mistakes rather than ‘random’ errors. Experiment 3 (52 chimpanzees) established suitability of the task for non-human great apes and showed that chimpanzees' performance was comparable to the performance of 3- and 4-year olds, but worse than 5-year olds. These results suggest that chimpanzees and young children share attentional set shifting capacities, but that there are unique changes in the human lineage from 5 years of age.

Original language	English
Journal	Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume	290
Issue number	1991
Early online date	18 Jan 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1496
Publication status	Published - 25 Jan 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding
The research of A.M.S. was supported by a ‘INQMINDS’ ERC Starting Grant no. (SEP-210159400). The funding sources had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, writing the paper, nor in the decision to submit the article for publication.

Acknowledgements
We thank the children, parents, and the schools and nurseries for participation, Geraldine Brown for facilitating data collection, Rosie O'Connor and Karen Golden for assistance with data collection, coding and reliability coding, Lisa Moir, Kaja Andersen, Valerie Lye, Abigail Petrie, Rebecca Benson, Eilidh Sandilands, Joao Pedro Sobrinho Ramos, Amy Lord, Ayra Rehman, Anna Sabadze, Molly Finn and Maja Juszczakiewicz Lewis for assistance with data collection, Wendi Zhang for assistance with data processing, Syed Rezwan Kabir for help with video data compression, Rachel Lawson, Haerim Lee, Heather Birge, Rishika Kannan, Drew Anderson, Tom Francis, Ainsley Macfarlane, Chloe Hunt, Araceli Stoessel Silva, Mona Giff, Kiana MacPherson, Krittika Sekhon and Micaela Kromhout for assistance with data coding, Joshua Rukundo, the board members and all the staff at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust in Uganda for their support. We appreciate permission from the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology and the Uganda Wildlife Authority. We thank Richard Vigne, Samuel Mutisya, Stephen Ngulu, the board members and the staff of Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Kenya for their support, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya Wildlife Service and the National Council for Science and Technology for approving our research, the editor for handling the manuscript, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments to an earlier version of this manuscript.

Data Availability Statement

Data and analysis code available at https://osf.io/c9sdh/?view_only=1bf2cf7109604557a3d0186b10334cbd (doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/C9SDH).

The data are provided in the electronic supplementary material

Keywords

rule switching
executive functions
cognitive flexibility
attentional set shifting
comparative cognition

Access to Document

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Cite this

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title = "The shifting shelf task: a new, non-verbal measure for attentional set shifting",

abstract = "Attentional set shifting is a core ingredient of cognition, allowing for fast adaptation to changes in the environment. How this skill compares between humans and other primates is not well known. We examined performance of 3- to 5-year-old children and chimpanzees on a new attentional set shifting task. We presented participants with two shelves holding the same set of four boxes. To choose the correct box on each shelf, one has to switch attention depending on which shelf one is currently presented with. Experiment 1 (forty-six 3- to 5-year olds, predominantly European White) established content validity, showing that the majority of errors were specific switching mistakes indicating failure to shift attention. Experiment 2 (one hundred and seventy-eight 3- to 6-year olds, predominantly European White) showed that older children made fewer mistakes, but if mistakes were made, a larger proportion were switching mistakes rather than {\textquoteleft}random{\textquoteright} errors. Experiment 3 (52 chimpanzees) established suitability of the task for non-human great apes and showed that chimpanzees' performance was comparable to the performance of 3- and 4-year olds, but worse than 5-year olds. These results suggest that chimpanzees and young children share attentional set shifting capacities, but that there are unique changes in the human lineage from 5 years of age.",

keywords = "rule switching, executive functions, cognitive flexibility, attentional set shifting, comparative cognition",

author = "Eva Reindl and V{\"o}lter, {C. J.} and Zeynep Civelek and L. Duncan and Z. Lugosi and E. Felsche and E. Herrmann and J. Call and Amanda Seed",

note = "Funding The research of A.M.S. was supported by a {\textquoteleft}INQMINDS{\textquoteright} ERC Starting Grant no. (SEP-210159400). The funding sources had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, writing the paper, nor in the decision to submit the article for publication. Acknowledgements We thank the children, parents, and the schools and nurseries for participation, Geraldine Brown for facilitating data collection, Rosie O'Connor and Karen Golden for assistance with data collection, coding and reliability coding, Lisa Moir, Kaja Andersen, Valerie Lye, Abigail Petrie, Rebecca Benson, Eilidh Sandilands, Joao Pedro Sobrinho Ramos, Amy Lord, Ayra Rehman, Anna Sabadze, Molly Finn and Maja Juszczakiewicz Lewis for assistance with data collection, Wendi Zhang for assistance with data processing, Syed Rezwan Kabir for help with video data compression, Rachel Lawson, Haerim Lee, Heather Birge, Rishika Kannan, Drew Anderson, Tom Francis, Ainsley Macfarlane, Chloe Hunt, Araceli Stoessel Silva, Mona Giff, Kiana MacPherson, Krittika Sekhon and Micaela Kromhout for assistance with data coding, Joshua Rukundo, the board members and all the staff at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust in Uganda for their support. We appreciate permission from the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology and the Uganda Wildlife Authority. We thank Richard Vigne, Samuel Mutisya, Stephen Ngulu, the board members and the staff of Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Kenya for their support, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya Wildlife Service and the National Council for Science and Technology for approving our research, the editor for handling the manuscript, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments to an earlier version of this manuscript.",

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AU - Lugosi, Z.

AU - Felsche, E.

AU - Herrmann, E.

AU - Call, J.

AU - Seed, Amanda

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KW - cognitive flexibility

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DO - 10.1098/rspb.2022.1496

M3 - Article

SN - 0962-8452

VL - 290

JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

IS - 1991

ER -

The shifting shelf task: a new, non-verbal measure for attentional set shifting

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

Access to Document

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Cite this