How can human learning be measured and quantified using constancy and contingency as parameters in a human foraging experiment?

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ALW Open Programme

Proposal form adapted for the Future Planet Earth Science - Bsc project

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Adapted for the BSc Project Earth Sciences at IBED UVA

The maximum length of a proposal is 12 pages, including a maximum of 4 pages for the description of the proposed research

***NOTE FOR EACH ITEM TOTAL PERCENTAGE FOR FINAL GRADE ARE ALOCATED *** 1a. Details of proposal

Title:? How can human learning be measured and quantified using constancy and contingency as parameters in a human foraging experiment?

Area: Ο Geo and Biosphere Ο from Molecule to Organism 1b. Field(s) of research

code + field of research; please see the NWO research field list: http://www.nwo.nl/financiering/nwo-disciplinecodes

main field of research

1 code: 2 description:

3 22.40.00 Ecologie

4 If applicable: other fields of research (in order of relevance):

5 code: description:

6 22.30.00 Diergedrag, dierpsychologie

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1c. Details of applicant Name: Nada Alberts

Gender: Ο Male Ο Female E-mail: nadaalberts@hotmail.com Date of birth: 12-10-1998 BSc study start date: 01-09-2018

Institution: Institute of interdisciplinary science

Position: Ο Professor Ο Associate professor (UHD) Ο Assistant professor (UD) Ο Student: Research School: University of Amsterdam

Name and address of the responsible person at your institution (e.g. scientific director of the institute or dean of the faculty):

Dr. ir. E.E. (Emiel) van Loon

Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics Postbus 94240

1090 GE Amsterdam The Netherlands

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2a. Composition of the research group List all staff members involved in the proposed research: provide name, initials, titles and type of involvement, e.g. daily guidance, technician, thesis supervisor, advisor.

Name and title Specialization Institution Involvement

Mw. N. (Nada) Alberts Computational Science Faculty of Science (FNWI)- Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Group member

Dhr. L. (Liam) Adam Simulation and Modelling Faculty of Science (FNWI)- Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Group member

Mw. P. (Precious) Held Cognition and ecology Faculty of Science (FNWI)- Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Group member

Dhr. J. (Joris) Oud Simulation and Modelling Faculty of Science (FNWI)- Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Group member

Dhr.dr. ir. E.E. (Emiel) van Loon Statistical Ecology Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) Thesis Supervisor and Topic Specialist Mw.M.(Marga) Korporaal MSc. Daily guidance Research methods and Statistics Faculty of Science (FNWI)- Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Daily Supervisor Mw.dr. R.P.J. (Renske) Hoondert Ecological modelling Faculty of Science (FNWI)- Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) Daily Supervisor

2b. Top 5 publications related to the proposed research

1. Colwell, R. K. (1974). Predictability, Constancy, and Contingency of Periodic Phenomena. Ecology, 55(5), 1148–1153. doi:10.2307/1940366

2. Feher da Silva, C., & Hare, T. A. (2020). Humans primarily use model-based inference in the two-stage task. Nature Human Behaviour. doi:10.1038/s41562-020-0905-y

3. Kalff, C., Hills, T., & Wiener, J. M. (2010). Human foraging behavior: A virtual reality investigation on area restricted search in humans. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 32. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74m6d4qr

4. Shettleworth, S. J. (2001). Animal cognition and animal behaviour. Animal Behaviour, 61(2), 277–286. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1606

5. Gaulin, S. J., & Fitzgerald, R. W. (1989). Sexual selection for spatial-learning ability. Animal Behaviour, 37, 322–331. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-3472(89)90121-8

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Page 3 of 9 3a. Scientific summary

Recognizing spatial patterns in foraging strategies in humans is a poorly studied academic sub-field of

psychology and ecology. The aim of the study is to understand and define the relationship between constancy and contingency in travel pathways and cognition in a human foraging experiment. Multiple levels of

predictability, search trials and spatial agreement will be distinguished to test not solely the relationship, but also the development of constancy and contingency over the scope of the experiment. Preliminary results extracted from literature research highlighted that humans have the tendency to use area restricted search in order to find resources in a cluster distribution. The latter means humans are driven by a reward system that encourages stronger turning angles after resource discovery, aiming at strategy adaptations within the experimental trials. Within these trials it is expected that there is a rather structured, non-stochastic relationship between the distances from resource A to resource B, called runs, and that the amount of runs should be low as the experiment continues. This latter expectation will be calculated by the Runs Test for Randomness and will indicate that lower numbers are correlated with pattern memorizing and more efficient search routes. 3c. Summary for the general public (max. 100 words) Please provide both a title and summary for the general public, preferably in Dutch.

Title: Hoe kan menselijk leren gekwantificeerd en gemeten worden aan de hand van de afgelegde afstand tussen twee middelen in een zoek experiment?

Summary:

Hoe leren mensen? Dat is het doel in dit onderzoek. Mensen zijn geprogrammeerd om patronen te herkennen wanneer zij hier meerdere keren aan blootgesteld zijn. In het experiment vragen wij deelnemers om te zoeken naar middelen in een park terwijl zij uitgerust zullen zijn met GPS trackers en vragenlijsten, gericht op het begrijpen van motieven in zoekgedrag. Met de data zal constantheid en contingentie worden bepaald aan de hand van de afgelegde afstanden tussen middel A en middel B en zal er onderzocht worden of er in het experiment een significante relatie bestaat tussen patroon herkenning en efficiënter zoekgedrag.

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Page 4 of 9 4. Description of the proposed research

Introduction

Animal psychology and ethology were studied independently for most of the 20th century (Shettleworth, 2001). Ethologists focused on behavior in nature whereas animal psychologists focused predominantly on learned behavior in captivity (Shettleworth, 2001). The combination of both fields yield the possibility of a new field of cognitive ecology. Cognition relating to all means of gathering, processing and acting upon information (Shettleworth, 2001) and ecology related to the interacting between organisms, including humans, and the physical environment. This field can merge resource availability with species presence due to animals recognizing food availability. The recognition of food availability ties in with spatial learning. Spatial learning differs in animal species, meadow voles for example perform significantly better in spatial tasks than females, which is thought to be universal among mammals (Gaulin & Fitzgerald, 1989). The decision making of female mice differs by using consistent strategies while males change their strategy more often depending on the collection of a reward, such as food sources in trees (Chen et al., 2021).

Research in humans show resemblance to the mice in regards to the change in search strategy whenever the desired resource was collected. Research of Silva & Hare (2020) states that humans mostly learn through model-free learning, which is a strategy that strengthens or weakens associations between stimuli and actions, with or without reward. According to this strategy, participants are more likely to repeat a first stage action if there is a stimulus, such as finding a particular resource in a park. For humans foraging in space, Area restricted search is one of the most studied behavioral pattern in animal foraging (Kalff, Hills & Wiener, 2010). It states that whenever a resource has been found the turning angle would have been larger, whereas it would have been smaller if no resource was found. Contributing to the theory that collecting a reward changes search tactic by transitioning into a more goal oriented strategy. The use of area restricted search also depends on the

distribution of the resource, since it is most effective in clustered environments, rather than uniform distributed environments (Kalff, Hills & Wiener, 2010).

This study will investigate the connection between cognition and movement in humans, in particular their memory of patterns over the course of multiple days and what effect that has on spatial learning. This will be studied by answering the research question: What is the relationship between the constancy and contingency in travel pathways and cognition in a human foraging experiment? . The sub questions used to answer the main research question are as follows: 1) How are constancy and contingency measured in the study?; and 2) How does the stochasticity of the experimental trials impact pattern memorizing?. In order to answer these questions, several constructs will be clarified in the paragraphs below, such as contingency, constancy, experimental runs and trials.

Contingency and constancy aid the scientific community in describing patterns of fluctuation in travelled distance (Colwell, 1974). The definition of the two parameters is as follows: constancy is how uniformly an event occurs over a time period and contingency measures the repeatability of patterns over time periods (Colwell, 1974). The repeatability of patterns over time periods is crucial in investigating learning behaviors regarding foraging experiments. Measuring contingency is possible by defining runs as relative distances between two resource discoveries, meaning that the path from resource A to resource B accounts for one run. A run is the distance travelled between resource A and resource B and a trial consists out of 19 runs.

The objective of the proposed research is to analyse animal thought processes regarding movement patterns. We will use three specific objectives for this purpose. 1) To set up an experiment with four participants, regarding foraging behavior with two different distributions; 2) To map the movement patterns of the

participants in statistical software, such as R-studio; 3) To conduct literature research, explaining decision making behind the movement patterns of the participants.

Research by Kalff et al. (2010) consisted out of creating a virtual environment in which participants were requested to forage for different resources. The study that will be conducted by the research team at the University of Amsterdam will bring this foraging experiment to life on a physical test site. This may unravel currently unknown search motives and patterns. The data and knowledge on human foraging experiments is very little, even though it is more easily measured than for example the foraging experiments on primates. Knowing the relationship between movement and cognition in humans may help aid the research of other primates, such as chimpanzees, since these can be harder to track and foraging behaviors may be similar between certain primates and humans. Knowing how quickly humans learn from patterns and how this impacts their decision making may also aid in programming different robots, targeted at retrieving or placing resources in a clustered or uniformly distributed environment.

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Page 5 of 9 2. Methods

2.1 Study site

The experiment will take place in Flevopark, located in East-Amsterdam. The location is easily accessible by bus, bike or subway. A large part of the park is reserved for the Jewish cemetery, which is the size of approximately 6 football fields. 2.2 Experimental design

The experiment consists out of four participants, between the ages of 14 and 64. This wide range of individuals was chosen since the only criteria for participation would be adequate mobility, availability for multiple consecutive days and the ability to participate in a serious study. The experiment will take place from April 12th to April 16th and will be divided into a morning and afternoon group. Both groups will take no longer than 90 minutes to complete the search.

For the experiment itself the participants will be asked to meet the staff at the entrance of Science Park and will be equipped with a rucksack containing GPS & Lora trackers. The participants are then escorted to the entrance of Flevopark where the experiment will then start. Before the search commences, the participants are pointed at a few technicalities, namely:

- The ribbons are located at heights between 1 and 2 meters

- It is not permitted to enter or cross the bushes in Flevopark due to the potential interference with other studies.

- The ribbons are easily observable from the paths in the Flevopark - The goal is to collect 20 out of the 40 ribbons located at the test site

- The experiment is not about speed but rather about walking the shortest route possible between two ribbons.

Due to the simple nature of the experimental set up, minimal equipment is necessary. GPS-trackers, ribbons to mark the trees, paper and pen in order to write down any additional information during the research and lastly a watch or mobile cell phone are the necessary equipment for the experiment. For the data analysis, the newest version of R-Studio will be used, which is version 4.0.5. Since the government stimulates working from home during the Covid-19 crisis, the data analysis in R studio can be done at home.

After the technicalities the participants may commence their search, which consists out of searching for ribbons attached to trees in the field, noting down the time at which they spot a ribbon and lastly the collection of the ribbon while noting down the ribbon-ID alongside any other observation that might be relevant regarding search behaviors, for example timestamps of potential ribbon sightings and weather situations. Due to the social distancing restrictions brought upon by the Covid-19 crisis, the experiment will be conducted at 1.5 meters distance from one another.

In order to study the spatial-temporal learning behavior of humans, several rules will be placed in order to adequately question the research question: ‘How can spatial learning be observed between or within

experimental runs regarding relative travelled distance?’. At first two levels of spatial arrangement will be tested throughout the study, namely a regular distribution and a clustered distribution. Both trials will be repeated throughout the five days, making it ten trials in total, and the ribbons contain four levels of predictability. A quarter of the trees get a ribbon at every repetition, a quarter gets a ribbon in a strictly alternating way, a quarter gets a ribbon in an irregular way but more than once and lastly a quarter of the trees will only be marked once during the scope of the experiment. The ribbon locations will be chosen out of a selection of 200 suitable trees and lastly the ribbons will be placed by a system completely unknown for the test subjects.

The type of research that will be conducted consists out of a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative data will be obtained by the GPS trackers, which measures time and distance between two ribbon findings. The qualitative data will consist out of additional information reported by the participants during the experimental runs, such as weather conditions, thought process regarding search behavior and individual remarks about the placement of the ribbons.

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Page 6 of 9 Data analysis

After the experiment is finished, the data will be collected and translated into the metric ‘relative distance travelled’, which is calculated by subdividing the actual distance by the shortest possible route. This metric will be used for both contingency and constancy. In order to determine whether the differences in the relative distance travelled are stochastic. The latter will be done according to the runs function in R studio, present in the ‘snpar’ package. After acquiring the runs data, an Anova will be used in order to compare the runs data of multiple days. The latter will be done to test whether the differences significantly explain patterns of human learning.

The use of statistical software to map the movement behaviors of animals over multiple runs and days, provides insight in the thought processes involved in making decisions. In this study we will analyse the patterns in which participants move and determine how much they differ from the most efficient route, which comes together in the metrics relative distance travelled and time.

Expected results

Firstly it is expected that repetition, meaning multiple experimental trial, causes search efficiency to increase due to the memorization of the pattern of ribbon placement. It is also expected that this search efficiency increases the most if the resources are placed in a spatial distribution rather than a uniform

distribution. In addition, participants are more likely to learn the ribbon pattern if the complexity of the resource availability pattern is fairly low. Lastly, the amount of statistical runs should be consistently low if the

participants are learning the pattern, meaning the relative distance should become increasingly lower as the gap between the fastest possible distance and the actual distance becomes smaller.

Final pitch (“uitsmijter”)

Humans learn from repeated exposure to a situation. In our research, the participants are expected to obtain higher search efficiency, shorter search routes and fewer statistical runs, meaning less variation in travel routes over the course of five days. It is of utmost importance that this research will be conducted, since it will not only give insight in thought processes of human decision making, but can be extrapolated into movement patterns of primates, which could be more challenging to track. This research will efficiently use its resources, does not require high equipment costs and can open many doors for potential further research in regards to decision making in humans and even in artificial intelligence.

References.

Animal Behaviour, 61(2), 277–286. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1606

Chen, C. S., Ebitz, R. B., Bindas, S. R., Redish, A. D., Hayden, B. Y., & Grissom, N. M. (2021). Divergent Strategies for Learning in Males and Females. Current Biology, 31(1), 39–50.e4.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.075

Colwell, R. K. (1974). Predictability, Constancy, and Contingency of Periodic Phenomena. Ecology, 55(5), 1148–1153. doi:10.2307/1940366

Feher da Silva, C., & Hare, T. A. (2020). Humans primarily use model-based inference in the two-stage task. Nature Human Behaviour. doi:10.1038/s41562-020-0905-y

Gaulin, S. J., & Fitzgerald, R. W. (1989). Sexual selection for spatial-learning ability. Animal Behaviour, 37, 322–331. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-3472(89)90121-8

Kalff, C., Hills, T., & Wiener, J. M. (2010). Human foraging behavior: A virtual reality investigation on area restricted search in humans. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 32. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74m6d4qr

Shettleworth, S. J. (2001). Animal cognition and animal behaviour. 5a. Timetable of the project

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Please provide the time schedule of the entire project. Specify the activities to be carried out as part of the project.

Week dates Activities

Week 1 (01/03/2021- 07/03/2021) General meeting with supervisors and daily guidance teachers

Week 2 (08/03/2021-14/03/2021 Meeting targeted at building up the experiment Week 3 (15/03/2021-21/03/2021) Self-study and general meeting with supervisors Week 3 (22/03/2021-28/03/2021) Self-study and general meeting with supervisors Week 4 (29/03/2021-04/04/2021) Peer review meeting

General meeting with supervisors

April 2nd _{: Deadline for the research proposal at 12:00} Week 5 (05/04/2021-11/04/2021) Tuesday 6th: _{feedback research proposal}

General weekly meeting Week 6 (12/04/2021-18/04/2021) Fieldwork (12-16 April)

April 14th: _{mid-term evaluation}

Week 7 (19/04/2021-25/04/2021) April 21st_{: Deadline introduction and methods of} thesis for feedback

April 22nd_{: Meeting introduction/methods at 13:30} Week 8 (26/04/2021-02/05/2021) Weekly meeting with supervisors

Incorporating feedback from methods and introduction

Week 9 (03/05/2021-09/05/2021) General weekly meeting Starting to analyse the data Week 10 (10/05/2021-16/05/2021) Working on results and discussion

General weekly meeting

Week 11 (17/05/2021-23/05/2021) Working on results and discussion General weekly meeting

Week 12 (24/05/2021-30/05/2021) Deadline final thesis for feedback Week 13 (31/05/2021-6/06/2021) May 31st_{: deadline thesis submission} 5b. Budget

Please provide 100 words of explanation for the various items requested. Estimate for lab instruments and measurements are allowed!

Equipment: For the experiment there is very minimal equipment necessary. R-studio is the software necessary for the data analysis, which is free of charge. A reference manager might be wished by the student, which can cost 0 up to 133 euros.

Fieldwork: For the fieldwork, GPS and Lora trackers, ribbons to mark the trees and the questionnaires containing quantitative and qualitative data are needed. This is respectively expected to cost 175, 20 and 5 euros. The consumables in the study consist out of the chocolate bars for the participants at the end of the experiment, drinks and food provided during the experiment and the monetary compensation of 50 euros each. Public transportation costs of the personnel will be approximately 50 euros per person.

Personnel (in research months) Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4

Bsc student x 50 x x

Research costs (in k€)

Equipment 0-113 x x x

Consumables** x 20 x x

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Page 8 of 9 6. Scientific embedding of the proposed research

This study will be conducted in collaboration with the institute of biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics (IBED). 7. Knowledge utilisation

- 7A: Beneficiaries identified:

The beneficiaries of this study will most likely be researchers that want to use our pioneering experiment as their basis. It can also be used by psychology students to grasp a better understanding of human decision making in relationship with their physical environment. The scope of potential knowledge users is very broad, ranging from interested individuals to municipals to computer programmers.

- 7B: Stakeholder feedback:

There are no stakeholder meetings or other form of feedback planned with the potential knowledge users. The information presented in the study will be done independently of the stakeholders and provide the purpose of educating colleagues in the fields of psychology, ecology and cognition.

- 7C: Beneficiaries confirmed:

The potential knowledge users are as follows:

- Students and other researchers, such as researchers of movement patterns and cognitive thinking of primates. - The municipality of Amsterdam, since search behaviors of humans may aid in the placement of recreational assets in a park.

- 7D: Education:

The researcher will receive a grade for the thesis as this is the last course needed to successfully complete the bachelor Future Planet Studies. This research is part of the Future Earth track.

- 7E: Data management:

The data management will be done in R-studio during the experiment and will afterwards be translated into a csv file containing all the quantitative data. The qualitative data will be placed into the appendix in the form of questionnaires.

- 7F: Data distribution or integration:

The data will be freely available after completion of the study. The link to the research data will be placed in the finished study.

- 7G: Outreach method identified:

There is no specific plan to communicate the results to the general public or potential knowledge users, but it is possible to present the information of this study in multiple different conferences, distributing the information to researchers and individuals taking interest in the subject.

- 7H: Outreach time schedule and budget:

No financial resources are necessarily needed in order to utilize objectives of the research proposal. It might be possible that conferences carry some additional costs such as transport and entrance, but this is not determined, since the future of conferences might be online due to Covid-19 restrictions.

8. Statements by the applicant

YES/NO I endorse and follow the Code Openness Animal Experiments (if applicable). YES/NO I endorse and follow the Code Biosecurity (if applicable).

YES/NO By submitting this document I declare that I satisfy the nationally and internationally accepted standards for scientific conduct as stated in the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Scientific Practice 2012 (Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU)).

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Page 9 of 9 YOUR DETAILS:

Name: Nada Alberts Place: Purmerend Date: 02/04/2021

--- Please submit the application to NWO in electronic form (pdf format is required) using NWO’s electronic

application system, which can be accessed via the NWO website. The application must be submitted from the account of the main applicant. For any technical questions regarding submission, please contact the helpdesk (iris@nwo.nl).