Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
Zhongqiao Lin
Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
Wenyi Zhang
Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Jianshu Li
Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
Xiyuan Chen
Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China
Humans can often handle daunting tasks with ease by developing a set of strategies to reduce decision-making into simpler problems. The ability to use heuristic strategies demands an advanced level of intelligence and has not been demonstrated in animals. Here, we trained macaque monkeys to play the classic video game Pac-Man. The monkeys’ decision-making may be described with a strategy-based hierarchical decision-making model with over 90% accuracy. The model reveals that the monkeys adopted the take-the-best heuristic by using one dominating strategy for their decision-making at a time and formed compound strategies by assembling the basis strategies to handle particular game situations. With the model, the computationally complex but fully quantifiable Pac-Man behavior paradigm provides a new approach to understanding animals’ advanced cognition.
