The Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect reflects an association of magnitude with space. For example, humans typically map small numbers to one side of space and large numbers to the other. Research with a variety of animal species has revealed similar spatial-magnitude associations in species without relevant cultural practices, suggesting ancient origins. Human spatial-numeric associations are known to be modified by cultural practices, such as reading direction. Some studies of nonhumans have suggested that spatial-numeric associations are fixed, with small quantities represented to the left, while others suggest this relationship is not preprogrammed. Here, we report variable and flexible spatial-numeric associations in rhesus monkeys. Monkeys were required to pick both the smaller and the larger array of dots across counterbalanced conditions. We found clear spatial-numeric associations that varied among individuals and reversed between the Pick Small and Pick Large quantity conditions-indicating flexible rather than fixed associations. We found similar but nonsignificant patterns in subsequent tests using size rather than quantity. These results, like those from adult birds and apes, suggest that while the cognitive architecture for spatial-magnitude mapping is evolutionarily conserved, the specific spatial associations shown by individuals likely result from experience.

Behavioral measures of impulsivity and other traits often show weaker test-retest reliability than self-report measures. Weaker reliability impacts the assessment of individual differences in the trait or state being assessed. Behavioral tasks demonstrate greater sensitivity to state variables which may be a key reason for changes in ranked performance across time. The present study examines a single impulsivity task, the escalating interest task, and considers the design principles that may alter the within-session stability of the assessed behavior. A reanalysis of existing data is contrasted with new behavioral data to reveal that rapid changes in task contingencies produced more stable individual differences than prolonged exposure to each contingency. This outcome may be driven by expanding the number of contingencies experienced at each assessment or by keeping behavior in transition. An attempt to avoid floor or ceiling effects by increasing the ambiguity of the contingency, however, did not produce the desired result. The implications of these results for the escalating interest task as well as other behavioral tasks are considered.

Sun et al. (2025) reveal the progressive, dynamic changes in the response properties of thousands of hippocampal neurons as mice learn a conditional discrimination while moving along a virtual linear track. At the end of training, separate orthogonalized ensemble codes, reflecting the properties of a state machine, capture the inherent structure of the task while dissociating the discrimination outcomes.

An experiment using a predictive learning task with college students evaluated the impact of a stimulus associated with extinction on an AAB renewal design. Four groups of participants learned a specific relationship between two cues (X and Y) and two outcomes (O1 and O2) in Context A during the first phase. Subsequently, both cues were subjected to extinction in the same Context A. During the Test, extinction was in effect for both cues; one group experienced it in Context A (AAA), while the other three groups were tested in a second Context B. We observed a reduction in the AAB renewal effect when participants received a stimulus associated with extinction (AAB*), but not when testing involved presenting a new stimulus (AAB). However, the reductive effect of the extinction reminder was not observed when the stimulus was presented only during the 75% of the extinction trials (AAB*75). These findings suggest that, under certain circumstances, the level of association of the extinction reminder with extinction might affect its efficacy in reducing response recovery.

Cue-exposure is a treatment (e.g. for addictions and phobias) that aims to extinguish conditioned responses to target cues. However, especially in the case of addiction, relapse still occurs after cue-exposure and this may be due to recovery of conditioned responses outside of the extinction context. Super-extinction and deepened-extinction are two compound-cue extinction procedures which have been assessed for their capacity to produce more robust extinction than standard single-cue extinction procedures. We carried out further assessment of super and deepened-extinction protocols but found no evidence that they produced less response recovery compared to single-cue extinction. Contrariwise, super-extinction actually produced more recovery than the other two conditions. These results can be understood in terms of configural associative models (configural Rescorla–Wagner and Pearce configural model) but not in terms of the simple elemental Rescorla–Wagner model. Furthermore, the configural models provided better fits to overall data, and the Pearce configural model was better than the configural Rescorla–Wagner model.

In a recent study, Johnson and Wynne found that dogs classically conditioned to associate electric shocks with chasing a fast-moving mechanical lure inhibited chasing behaviour at test, while dogs conditioned with food rewards did not learn any operant behaviours to substitute chasing and therefore continued to interact with the lure. Here, we raise questions about the suitability of the training protocols and challenge the conclusion that shock collars impose minimal welfare impacts.

A new study investigates how stingless bee colonies inherit one of two architecturally distinct types of comb and proposes the primary mechanism of inheritance as stigmergy: among-individual coordination in comb building informed by environmental cues (i.e., social artefacts). These findings highlight the importance of social information in creating and maintaining architectural variance among structures.

Researchers have recently described the wing-fluttering signal of Japanese tits and eyeblink signal of concave-eared torrent frogs as bodily communication that elicits specific responses. I assess the evidence that these may be intentional, goal-directed signals using established criteria for gestural communication.

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (Andrews et al., 2024) highlights increasing empirical evidence supporting the existence of sentience in many animal species. The views in the declaration rest on an increasingly popular theoretical approach that comparative psychologists could use to guide research on non-human consciousness.