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Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks

We aimed to study whether a non-human primate species responded differently to information acquired socially compared with that acquired individually. To do so, we attempted to train squirrel monkeys to perform binary discriminations. These involved exposure to either social information (human or pu...

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Autores principales: Renner, Elizabeth, Atkinson, Mark, Caldwell, Christine A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6836757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31720107
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7960
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author Renner, Elizabeth
Atkinson, Mark
Caldwell, Christine A.
author_facet Renner, Elizabeth
Atkinson, Mark
Caldwell, Christine A.
author_sort Renner, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description We aimed to study whether a non-human primate species responded differently to information acquired socially compared with that acquired individually. To do so, we attempted to train squirrel monkeys to perform binary discriminations. These involved exposure to either social information (human or puppet demonstrator performs an initial ‘information trial’) or individual exploration (monkey performs information trial as well as subsequent test trials). In Experiment 1, we presented the task on a touchscreen tablet. Only one monkey appeared to learn the significance of the information trial, and across the group there was no improvement in performance over sessions. The proficient individual showed little evidence of successful transfer to three-way discrimination problems, suggesting limited representation of the task structure. In Experiment 2, we used a logically identical task, presented as a physical object choice (inverted cups concealing a food reward). No monkeys learned to use the information trial cues, and success again did not increase over sessions. We concluded that the monkeys’ poor performance in Experiment 1 was not attributable to the mode of presentation (touchscreen), but reflected real difficulties with mastering the task structure. For both experiments, we analysed the monkeys’ spontaneous responses to the different trial types (social-win, social-lose, individual-win, and individual-lose). We found that monkeys had a tendency to repeat selections made during the information trial, whether these were made by themselves or by a demonstrator. This tendency to repeat was observed even following lose trials (i.e. when incorrect). Apparent ‘success’ following win trials was probably largely an artefact of behavioural inertia (individual learning conditions) and stimulus enhancement (social learning conditions), rather than sensitivity to the reward cues associated with that stimulus. Although monkeys did respond somewhat differently (more repeats) following win trials, compared with lose trials, this was no more apparent in the object choice task than the touchscreen task, again suggesting that the less ecologically valid presentation medium did not actively disrupt potential for learning the discrimination rule. Both touchscreen and physical object choice tasks appear to be valid methods to study learning in squirrel monkeys, with neither method giving a clear performance advantage over the other. However, this population did not master the contingencies in these tasks.
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spelling pubmed-68367572019-11-12 Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks Renner, Elizabeth Atkinson, Mark Caldwell, Christine A. PeerJ Animal Behavior We aimed to study whether a non-human primate species responded differently to information acquired socially compared with that acquired individually. To do so, we attempted to train squirrel monkeys to perform binary discriminations. These involved exposure to either social information (human or puppet demonstrator performs an initial ‘information trial’) or individual exploration (monkey performs information trial as well as subsequent test trials). In Experiment 1, we presented the task on a touchscreen tablet. Only one monkey appeared to learn the significance of the information trial, and across the group there was no improvement in performance over sessions. The proficient individual showed little evidence of successful transfer to three-way discrimination problems, suggesting limited representation of the task structure. In Experiment 2, we used a logically identical task, presented as a physical object choice (inverted cups concealing a food reward). No monkeys learned to use the information trial cues, and success again did not increase over sessions. We concluded that the monkeys’ poor performance in Experiment 1 was not attributable to the mode of presentation (touchscreen), but reflected real difficulties with mastering the task structure. For both experiments, we analysed the monkeys’ spontaneous responses to the different trial types (social-win, social-lose, individual-win, and individual-lose). We found that monkeys had a tendency to repeat selections made during the information trial, whether these were made by themselves or by a demonstrator. This tendency to repeat was observed even following lose trials (i.e. when incorrect). Apparent ‘success’ following win trials was probably largely an artefact of behavioural inertia (individual learning conditions) and stimulus enhancement (social learning conditions), rather than sensitivity to the reward cues associated with that stimulus. Although monkeys did respond somewhat differently (more repeats) following win trials, compared with lose trials, this was no more apparent in the object choice task than the touchscreen task, again suggesting that the less ecologically valid presentation medium did not actively disrupt potential for learning the discrimination rule. Both touchscreen and physical object choice tasks appear to be valid methods to study learning in squirrel monkeys, with neither method giving a clear performance advantage over the other. However, this population did not master the contingencies in these tasks. PeerJ Inc. 2019-11-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6836757/ /pubmed/31720107 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7960 Text en © 2019 Renner et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Animal Behavior
Renner, Elizabeth
Atkinson, Mark
Caldwell, Christine A.
Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
title Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
title_full Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
title_fullStr Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
title_full_unstemmed Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
title_short Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
title_sort squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks
topic Animal Behavior
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6836757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31720107
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7960
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AT atkinsonmark squirrelmonkeyresponsestoinformationfromsocialdemonstrationandindividualexplorationusingtouchscreenandobjectchoicetasks
AT caldwellchristinea squirrelmonkeyresponsestoinformationfromsocialdemonstrationandindividualexplorationusingtouchscreenandobjectchoicetasks