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A prosocial function of head-gaze aversion and head-cocking in common marmosets

Gaze aversion is a behavior adopted by several mammalian and non-mammalian species in response to eye contact, and is usually interpreted as a reaction to a perceived threat. Unlike many other primate species, common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) are thought to have a high tolerance for direct gaze...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Spadacenta, Silvia, Dicke, Peter W., Thier, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Nature Singapore 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35838928
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10329-022-00997-z
Descripción
Sumario:Gaze aversion is a behavior adopted by several mammalian and non-mammalian species in response to eye contact, and is usually interpreted as a reaction to a perceived threat. Unlike many other primate species, common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) are thought to have a high tolerance for direct gaze, barely exhibiting gaze avoidance towards conspecifics and humans. Here we show that this does not hold for marmosets interacting with a familiar experimenter who suddenly establishes eye contact in a playful interaction (peekaboo). Video footage synchronously recorded from the perspective of the marmoset and the experimenter showed that the monkeys consistently alternated between eye contact and head-gaze aversion, and that these responses were often preceded by head-cocking. We hypothesize that this behavioral strategy helps marmosets to temporarily disengage from emotionally overwhelming social stimulation due to sight of another individual’s face, in order to prepare for a new round of affiliative face-to-face interactions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10329-022-00997-z.