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Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys

Many vertebrate taxa respond to heterospecific alarm calls with anti-predator behaviours. While it is unclear how apparent recognition is achieved, learned associations between the occurrence of the call and the presence of a predator are considered the most likely explanation. Conclusive evidence t...

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Autores principales: Wheeler, Brandon C., Fahy, Martin, Tiddi, Barbara
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6687673/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31069567
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01264-3
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author Wheeler, Brandon C.
Fahy, Martin
Tiddi, Barbara
author_facet Wheeler, Brandon C.
Fahy, Martin
Tiddi, Barbara
author_sort Wheeler, Brandon C.
collection PubMed
description Many vertebrate taxa respond to heterospecific alarm calls with anti-predator behaviours. While it is unclear how apparent recognition is achieved, learned associations between the occurrence of the call and the presence of a predator are considered the most likely explanation. Conclusive evidence that this behaviour is indeed underpinned by learning, however, is scarce. This study tested whether wild black capuchin monkeys (Sapajus nigritus) learn to associate novel sounds with predators through a two-phase field experiment. During an initial training phase, three study groups were each presented with a playback of one of the three novel sounds together with a simulated felid predator on four occasions over an 8- to 12-week period. This was followed by a test phase, wherein each of the three sounds was played back to individuals in all three groups, allowing each sound to serve as both a test stimulus for individuals trained with that sound, and a control stimulus for individuals trained with another sound. Antipredator responses were significantly stronger in response to test sounds than to controls. Limited observations suggest that antipredator responses persisted for at least 2 years without reinforcement of the predator–sound link. Additionally, responses to noisier sounds were typically stronger than were those to more tonal sounds, although the effect of sound type cannot be disentangled from potential effects of group. This study provides the strongest evidence to date that learning affects the responses of primates to sounds such as heterospecific alarm calls, and supports the contention that signals provide receivers with information. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10071-019-01264-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-66876732019-08-23 Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys Wheeler, Brandon C. Fahy, Martin Tiddi, Barbara Anim Cogn Original Paper Many vertebrate taxa respond to heterospecific alarm calls with anti-predator behaviours. While it is unclear how apparent recognition is achieved, learned associations between the occurrence of the call and the presence of a predator are considered the most likely explanation. Conclusive evidence that this behaviour is indeed underpinned by learning, however, is scarce. This study tested whether wild black capuchin monkeys (Sapajus nigritus) learn to associate novel sounds with predators through a two-phase field experiment. During an initial training phase, three study groups were each presented with a playback of one of the three novel sounds together with a simulated felid predator on four occasions over an 8- to 12-week period. This was followed by a test phase, wherein each of the three sounds was played back to individuals in all three groups, allowing each sound to serve as both a test stimulus for individuals trained with that sound, and a control stimulus for individuals trained with another sound. Antipredator responses were significantly stronger in response to test sounds than to controls. Limited observations suggest that antipredator responses persisted for at least 2 years without reinforcement of the predator–sound link. Additionally, responses to noisier sounds were typically stronger than were those to more tonal sounds, although the effect of sound type cannot be disentangled from potential effects of group. This study provides the strongest evidence to date that learning affects the responses of primates to sounds such as heterospecific alarm calls, and supports the contention that signals provide receivers with information. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10071-019-01264-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2019-05-08 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC6687673/ /pubmed/31069567 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01264-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Wheeler, Brandon C.
Fahy, Martin
Tiddi, Barbara
Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
title Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
title_full Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
title_fullStr Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
title_full_unstemmed Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
title_short Experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
title_sort experimental evidence for heterospecific alarm signal recognition via associative learning in wild capuchin monkeys
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6687673/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31069567
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01264-3
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