Abstract
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.
One-Sentence Summary Macaque monkeys play Pac-Man with strategy-based hierarchical decision making, a cognitive capacity hitherto unknown in them.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
1 Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, System Neuroscience Building, Rm 302, 320 Yueyang Rd, Shanghai, China
