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Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster
Animals must learn foraging skills to successfully survive and reproduce but the sources of interindividual variation in learning are poorly understood. For example, there is little consensus on the role motivation plays, even though it is a key factor impacting learning outcomes in humans. Here, we...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10356951/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37468534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-37536-9 |
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author | Arseneau-Robar, T. Jean M. Anderson, Karyn A. Sicotte, Pascale Teichroeb, Julie A. |
author_facet | Arseneau-Robar, T. Jean M. Anderson, Karyn A. Sicotte, Pascale Teichroeb, Julie A. |
author_sort | Arseneau-Robar, T. Jean M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Animals must learn foraging skills to successfully survive and reproduce but the sources of interindividual variation in learning are poorly understood. For example, there is little consensus on the role motivation plays, even though it is a key factor impacting learning outcomes in humans. Here, we conduct a field experiment on a wild primate to investigate whether an individual’s vulnerability to feeding competition impacts their motivation to learn a beneficial foraging technique. We provided a group of monkeys with a food reward (i.e., a half banana) that needed to be retrieved from a box. The monkeys discovered an efficient technique that consistently allowed them to retrieve the banana quickly, decreasing the risk of food loss to competitors. We found that individuals who frequently experienced feeding competition learned this efficient technique significantly faster than individuals who rarely foraged in the presence of a dominant competitor. They appeared to use social learning to learn faster as they were more attentive to the handling techniques others used and improved their foraging skills after opportunities to observe a skilled demonstrator. These findings support that an individual’s vulnerability to feeding competition impacts their motivation to learn foraging skills that reduce food loss to competitors. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10356951 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-103569512023-07-21 Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster Arseneau-Robar, T. Jean M. Anderson, Karyn A. Sicotte, Pascale Teichroeb, Julie A. Sci Rep Article Animals must learn foraging skills to successfully survive and reproduce but the sources of interindividual variation in learning are poorly understood. For example, there is little consensus on the role motivation plays, even though it is a key factor impacting learning outcomes in humans. Here, we conduct a field experiment on a wild primate to investigate whether an individual’s vulnerability to feeding competition impacts their motivation to learn a beneficial foraging technique. We provided a group of monkeys with a food reward (i.e., a half banana) that needed to be retrieved from a box. The monkeys discovered an efficient technique that consistently allowed them to retrieve the banana quickly, decreasing the risk of food loss to competitors. We found that individuals who frequently experienced feeding competition learned this efficient technique significantly faster than individuals who rarely foraged in the presence of a dominant competitor. They appeared to use social learning to learn faster as they were more attentive to the handling techniques others used and improved their foraging skills after opportunities to observe a skilled demonstrator. These findings support that an individual’s vulnerability to feeding competition impacts their motivation to learn foraging skills that reduce food loss to competitors. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10356951/ /pubmed/37468534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-37536-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Arseneau-Robar, T. Jean M. Anderson, Karyn A. Sicotte, Pascale Teichroeb, Julie A. Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
title | Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
title_full | Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
title_fullStr | Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
title_full_unstemmed | Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
title_short | Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
title_sort | monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10356951/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37468534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-37536-9 |
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