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Rule-Guided Behavior across Species:Steps toward Declarative Cognition

Award Number: R01HD093690
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/15/2018
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 07/31/2024

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Rule-Guided Behavior across Species:Steps toward Declarative Cognition - Metacognition (knowing one's own mental states), and declarative cognition (expressing them) are essential cognitive functions and focuses of research. The proposed research will extend these research areas. It will give participants (human adults, children, nonhuman animals) a behavioral-report methodology by which they can describe their own task approach. It will give researchers a nonverbal way to instruct participants in the correct task approach. It will explore a new aspect of metacognition—the self-awareness of one's own task strategy. It will explore the roots of declarative cognition in young children, by providing a behavioral channel for self- report before the verbal channel fully supports that declaration. It will be transformative in comparative psychology, providing behavioral self-reports to animals for the first time. To this end, the proposed research asks whether participants can tune attention based on the instruction provided by abstract icons. It asks whether they can use those icons to make reports of their own task approach. It asks whether these icons can acquire quasi-symbolic properties, so that they are understood receptively (inducing instructional sets) and productively (allowing self-reports of task strategies). It addresses those questions using matching, categorization, same-different, and other influential tasks from comparative and developmental psychology. Finally, it asks whether participants can use their abstract icons to state their task preferences. Metacognition and declarative cognition are crucial to intellectual adaptation, educational success, and daily living. Understanding them well is an important scientific and mental-health goal. The proposed research will provide new ways to study the most basic forms of these capacities. It will provide animal models. These can be used in neuroscience studies to foster or rehabilitate these capacities. The research will give developmental researchers tools for exploring the beginnings of declarative cognition during child development. It will open nonverbal channels of declarative cognition that could serve humans impaired at verbal communication. These could support human comfort and palliative care. It will open a new metacognitive channel by which comparative psychologists may understand better animals' self-reflective minds.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2025	2022	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	5	12/15/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2024	2022	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	5	11/7/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2023	2022	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	5	7/5/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $229,320 )
2022	2022	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE 3RD FL	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	5	8/5/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$229,320
														Subtotal = $229,320

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $229,320 )
2021	2021	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE 3RD FL	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	4	8/4/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$229,320
														Subtotal = $229,320

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $233,250 )
2020	2020	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE 3RD FL	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	3	7/30/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$233,250
														Subtotal = $233,250

Issue Date FY: 2019 ( Subtotal = $231,750 )
2019	2019	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE 3RD FL	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	2	7/12/2019	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$231,750
														Subtotal = $231,750

Issue Date FY: 2018 ( Subtotal = $268,625 )
2018	2018	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC.	58 EDGEWOOD AVE NE 3RD FL	ATLANTA	GA	30303	FULTON	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	1	8/15/2018	NEW	$268,625
														Subtotal = $268,625

Grand Total All Awards = $1,192,265

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Rule-Guided Behavior across Species:Steps toward Declarative Cognition

Award Number: R01HD093690

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 08/15/2018

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 07/31/2024

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