1. Neuroscience

Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making

  1. Qianli Yang
  2. Zhongqiao Lin
  3. Wenyi Zhang
  4. Jianshu Li
  5. Xiyuan Chen
  6. Jiaqi Zhang
  7. Tianming Yang  Is a corresponding author
  1. Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
  2. Brown University, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500
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  1. Qianli Yang
  2. Zhongqiao Lin
  3. Wenyi Zhang
  4. Jianshu Li
  5. Xiyuan Chen
  6. Jiaqi Zhang
  7. Tianming Yang
(2022)
Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
eLife 11:e74500.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500
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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.

Data availability

The data and codes that support the findings of this study are provided at: https://github.com/superr90/Monkey_PacMan.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Qianli Yang

    Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4226-2319

  2. Zhongqiao Lin

    Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Wenyi Zhang

    Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Jianshu Li

    Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Xiyuan Chen

    Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  6. Jiaqi Zhang

    Brown University, Providence, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1649-3378

  7. Tianming Yang

    Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
    For correspondence
    tyang@ion.ac.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6976-9246

Funding

Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB32070100)

  • Tianming Yang

Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (2018SHZDZX05)

  • Tianming Yang

National Natural Science Foundation of China (32100832)

  • Qianli Yang

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All procedures followed the protocol approved by the Animal Care Committee of Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CEBSIT-2021004).

Copyright

© 2022, Yang et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Qianli Yang
  2. Zhongqiao Lin
  3. Wenyi Zhang
  4. Jianshu Li
  5. Xiyuan Chen
  6. Jiaqi Zhang
  7. Tianming Yang
(2022)
Monkey plays Pac-Man with compositional strategies and hierarchical decision-making
eLife 11:e74500.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74500

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