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Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates

Despite not knowing the exact age of individuals, humans can estimate their rough age using age-related physical features. Nonhuman primates show some age-related physical features; however, the cognitive traits underlying their recognition of age class have not been revealed. Here, we tested the ab...

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Autores principales: Sato, Anna, Koda, Hiroki, Lemasson, Alban, Nagumo, Sumiharu, Masataka, Nobuo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3368701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22685529
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038387
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author Sato, Anna
Koda, Hiroki
Lemasson, Alban
Nagumo, Sumiharu
Masataka, Nobuo
author_facet Sato, Anna
Koda, Hiroki
Lemasson, Alban
Nagumo, Sumiharu
Masataka, Nobuo
author_sort Sato, Anna
collection PubMed
description Despite not knowing the exact age of individuals, humans can estimate their rough age using age-related physical features. Nonhuman primates show some age-related physical features; however, the cognitive traits underlying their recognition of age class have not been revealed. Here, we tested the ability of two species of Old World monkey, Japanese macaques (JM) and Campbell's monkeys (CM), to spontaneously discriminate age classes using visual paired comparison (VPC) tasks based on the two distinct categories of infant and adult images. First, VPCs were conducted in JM subjects using conspecific JM stimuli. When analyzing the side of the first look, JM subjects significantly looked more often at novel images. Based on analyses of total looking durations, JM subjects looked at a novel infant image longer than they looked at a familiar adult image, suggesting the ability to spontaneously discriminate between the two age classes and a preference for infant over adult images. Next, VPCs were tested in CM subjects using heterospecific JM stimuli. CM subjects showed no difference in the side of their first look, but looked at infant JM images longer than they looked at adult images; the fact that CMs were totally naïve to JMs suggested that the attractiveness of infant images transcends species differences. This is the first report of visual age class recognition and a preference for infant over adult images in nonhuman primates. Our results suggest not only species-specific processing for age class recognition but also the evolutionary origins of the instinctive human perception of baby cuteness schema, proposed by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz.
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spelling pubmed-33687012012-06-08 Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates Sato, Anna Koda, Hiroki Lemasson, Alban Nagumo, Sumiharu Masataka, Nobuo PLoS One Research Article Despite not knowing the exact age of individuals, humans can estimate their rough age using age-related physical features. Nonhuman primates show some age-related physical features; however, the cognitive traits underlying their recognition of age class have not been revealed. Here, we tested the ability of two species of Old World monkey, Japanese macaques (JM) and Campbell's monkeys (CM), to spontaneously discriminate age classes using visual paired comparison (VPC) tasks based on the two distinct categories of infant and adult images. First, VPCs were conducted in JM subjects using conspecific JM stimuli. When analyzing the side of the first look, JM subjects significantly looked more often at novel images. Based on analyses of total looking durations, JM subjects looked at a novel infant image longer than they looked at a familiar adult image, suggesting the ability to spontaneously discriminate between the two age classes and a preference for infant over adult images. Next, VPCs were tested in CM subjects using heterospecific JM stimuli. CM subjects showed no difference in the side of their first look, but looked at infant JM images longer than they looked at adult images; the fact that CMs were totally naïve to JMs suggested that the attractiveness of infant images transcends species differences. This is the first report of visual age class recognition and a preference for infant over adult images in nonhuman primates. Our results suggest not only species-specific processing for age class recognition but also the evolutionary origins of the instinctive human perception of baby cuteness schema, proposed by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz. Public Library of Science 2012-05-31 /pmc/articles/PMC3368701/ /pubmed/22685529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038387 Text en Sato et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Sato, Anna
Koda, Hiroki
Lemasson, Alban
Nagumo, Sumiharu
Masataka, Nobuo
Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates
title Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates
title_full Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates
title_fullStr Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates
title_full_unstemmed Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates
title_short Visual Recognition of Age Class and Preference for Infantile Features: Implications for Species-Specific vs Universal Cognitive Traits in Primates
title_sort visual recognition of age class and preference for infantile features: implications for species-specific vs universal cognitive traits in primates
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3368701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22685529
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038387
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