The comparison of animals’ performance in categorization and cognition tasks with the performance of humans on the very same tasks helps us establish similarities and differences among species. Our experimental approach—in which the performance of pigeons, baboons and humans is compared—will help us discover the most basic mechanisms of cognition that are common across species. At the same time, we will be able to shed light on how the behaviors of different species may have diverged through evolution.

Surprise and change: Variations in the strength of present and absent cues in causal learning

Judgments of causal efficacy under constant and changing interevent contingencies

Discrimination blocking: Acquisition versus performance deficits in human contingency learning