Socially biased learning in monkeys |
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Authors: | Email author" target="_blank">D?FragaszyEmail author E?Visalberghi |
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Institution: | (1) Anthropological Institute, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | We review socially biased learning about food and problem solving in monkeys, relying especially on studies with tufted capuchin
monkeys (Cebus apella) and callitrichid monkeys. Capuchin monkeys most effectively learn to solve a new problem when they can act jointly with
an experienced partner in a socially tolerant setting and when the problem can be solved by direct action on an object or
substrate, but they do not learn by imitation. Capuchin monkeys are motivated to eat foods, whether familiar or novel, when
they are with others that are eating, regardless of what the others are eating. Thus, social bias in learning about foods
is indirect and mediated by facilitation of feeding. In most respects, social biases in learning are similar in capuchins
and callitrichids, except that callitrichids provide more specific behavioral cues to others about the availability and palatability
of foods. Callitrichids generally are more tolerant toward group members and coordinate their activity in space and time more
closely than capuchins do. These characteristics support stronger social biases in learning in callitrichids than in capuchins
in some situations. On the other hand, callitrichids’ more limited range of manipulative behaviors, greater neophobia, and
greater sensitivity to the risk of predation restricts what these monkeys learn in comparison with capuchins. We suggest that
socially biased learning is always the collective outcome of interacting physical, social, and individual factors, and that
differences across populations and species in social bias in learning reflect variations in all these dimensions. Progress
in understanding socially biased learning in nonhuman species will be aided by the development of appropriately detailed models
of the richly interconnected processes affecting learning. |
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