ArticleeLife2022
Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making.
Article in eLife, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural basis of compositional control.Nature · 2026Article
- Memorizing the future: Encoding anticipated interactions enhances human memory for dynamic stimuli.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- An intracranial dissection of human escape circuits.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Neural representational geometries reflect behavioral differences in monkeys and recurrent neural networks.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Using games to understand the mind.Nature human behaviour · 2024Review
- Who is calling? Optimizing source identification from marmoset vocalizations with hierarchical machine learning classifiers.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Controlling brain dynamics: Landscape and transition path for working memory.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Neural Mechanisms That Make Perceptual Decisions Flexible.Annual review of physiology · 2023Review
- Decision prioritization and causal reasoning in decision hierarchies.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
- A Platform for Cognitive Monitoring of Neurosurgical Patients During Hospitalization.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.