Gestural Communication in Macaques

Maestripieri, Dario

doi:10.1075/eoc.1.2.03mae

Cited by 86 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Similarly, Deaner, Khera, and Platt found that two males were strongly correlated in their ranked preference for specific faces (Deaner et al, 2005). To understand what social characteristics were most important, we used a model-free, cluster-based approach and found that monkeys that were viewed earlier and longer were more likely to have direct gaze and had redder sex skin, both of which are important visual cues for guiding social behavior (Vandenbergh, 1965; Maestripieri, 1997, 2005; Nunn, 1999; Waitt et al, 2003, 2006; Gerald et al, 2007; Birmingham et al, 2008a; Higham et al, 2013). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social relevance drives viewing behavior independent of low-level salience in rhesus macaques

Solyst

Buffalo

2014

Front. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Quantifying attention to social stimuli during the viewing of complex social scenes with eye tracking has proven to be a sensitive method in the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders years before average clinical diagnosis. Rhesus macaques provide an ideal model for understanding the mechanisms underlying social viewing behavior, but to date no comparable behavioral task has been developed for use in monkeys. Using a novel scene-viewing task, we monitored the gaze of three rhesus macaques while they freely viewed well-controlled composed social scenes and analyzed the time spent viewing objects and monkeys. In each of six behavioral sessions, monkeys viewed a set of 90 images (540 unique scenes) with each image presented twice. In two-thirds of the repeated scenes, either a monkey or an object was replaced with a novel item (manipulated scenes). When viewing a repeated scene, monkeys made longer fixations and shorter saccades, shifting from a rapid orienting to global scene contents to a more local analysis of fewer items. In addition to this repetition effect, in manipulated scenes, monkeys demonstrated robust memory by spending more time viewing the replaced items. By analyzing attention to specific scene content, we found that monkeys strongly preferred to view conspecifics and that this was not related to their salience in terms of low-level image features. A model-free analysis of viewing statistics found that monkeys that were viewed earlier and longer had direct gaze and redder sex skin around their face and rump, two important visual social cues. These data provide a quantification of viewing strategy, memory and social preferences in rhesus macaques viewing complex social scenes, and they provide an important baseline with which to compare to the effects of therapeutics aimed at enhancing social cognition.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social relevance drives viewing behavior independent of low-level salience in rhesus macaques

Solyst

Buffalo

2014

Front. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The scalp-retraction display (SR; for description see Table 1) is performed exclusively in aggressive contexts in M. fuscata (Maestripieri, 1997). On the contrary, in Tonkean macaques the same display can be used as an invitation to play (Thierry et al, 2000).…”

Section: Lip-smacking (Ls)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mimic me while playing! Social tolerance and rapid facial mimicry in macaques (Macaca tonkeana and Macaca fuscata).

Scopa

Palagi

2016

Journal of Comparative Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social play and tolerance are positively correlated and playful signals are more freely expressed in egalitarian than in despotic species. Macaque species are organized along a continuum from intolerant to tolerant social systems and, for this reason, they are good models to test some hypotheses about the possible linkage between communication and tolerance. We compared facial playful communication in 2 macaque species at opposite ends of the continuum: despotic Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata, and tolerant Tonkean macaques, Macaca tonkeana. We predicted that tolerance has favored larger facial display repertoires and playful cooperative tendency. Moreover, we evaluated if tolerance could also reflect in the selection for emotional sharing expressed through rapid facial mimicry (RFM). RFM is an automatic, unconscious, and fast (<1 s) motor mirror response which favors emotional communication between subjects. Although M. fuscata and M. tonkeana performed play faces (PF) at comparable levels, only Tonkean macaques showed the phenomenon of RFM. The playful sessions characterized by RFM lasted longer than those characterized by the presence of playful signals perceived by a playmate but not followed by mimicry. Interestingly, the duration of playful sessions in Tonkean macaques overcame that of the sessions in Japanese macaques. It is likely that RFM improves communicative exchanges between the playmates and, at the same time, promotes behavioral coordination and cooperation in the sequence of actions. The tolerant nature of Tonkean macaques, also expressed in play, can foster RFM which, at the same time, positively enhances the propensity to cooperate in a sort of positive feedback. (PsycINFO Database Record

show abstract

“…Then, a human ‘intruder,’ often wearing a face mask to conceal their identity, enters the room and stands in profile making no eye contact with the monkey. This is considered to be an ambiguous cue since gaze aversion is a signal of subordination in macaques (Maestripieri, 1997). While the intruder stands in profile macaques tend to freeze [generally defined as maintaining a tense body posture with no movement or vocalization for at least 3 s in non-human primates (Kalin et al, 2004)].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After a predetermined amount of time, the intruder orients frontally to stare at the monkey [a signal of dominance and threat in Macaca spp. and most other non-human primates (Maestripieri, 1997)] for an equal amount of time. When stared at, monkeys typically exhibit a range of aggressive-defensive and fear behaviors, reflecting appropriate fight or flight responses (Kalin and Shelton, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Standardized Test of Fearful Temperament in Primates: A Sensitive Alternative to the Human Intruder Task for Laboratory-Housed Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standardized and sensitive tests to assess differences in temperament among primates housed in captivity are essential for monitoring welfare and improving science outcomes through reduced noise in data. Fearful temperament in primates has traditionally been assessed using the Human Intruder Test (HIT) in which duration of bodily freeze in response to approach by an unknown human is measured. The HIT is susceptible to variation between facilities in execution, interpretation of data and could be stressful for animals with more fearful temperaments. We tested the applicability of a touch-screen task with putatively negative stimuli as a more standardizable and sensitive tool for measuring fearful temperament in laboratory primates. Seventeen adult male rhesus macaques were assessed for fearfulness using the HIT. They were then tested on a touch-screen task designed to measure two behavioral indices of fearfulness: behavioral inhibition and response-slowing. We predicted monkeys assessed as having more fearful temperament in the HIT, would show the greatest degree of behavioral inhibition and response-slowing to negative pictures in the touch-screen task. In Study 1, monkeys were rewarded with juice for touching gray squares on the screen (control trials). On test trials a picture of an unknown male conspecific face with direct-gaze (signaling threat) was shown. Monkeys were less likely to touch direct-gaze faces than control trials, indicating behavioral inhibition to threat. Behavioral inhibition was greatest amongst monkeys scored with most fearful temperament in the HIT. This primary result indicates the touch-screen task may be sensitive to a more subtle form of the bodily freeze behavior measured using the HIT. In Study 2, we tested whether these findings generalized to other classes of putatively negative stimuli; monkeys were shown pictures of the human intruder and objects associated with veterinary and husbandry procedures, interspersed with control trials (gray squares). There was no evidence of behavioral inhibition in Study 2. There was some evidence for response-slowing, which was greater for pictures of objects than pictures of the human intruder, and occurred independently of fearfulness in the HIT. We propose touch-screen tasks provide a more standardized and sensitive approach for assessing fearful temperament in laboratory primates.

show abstract

Gestural Communication in Macaques

Cited by 86 publications

References 49 publications

Social relevance drives viewing behavior independent of low-level salience in rhesus macaques

Social relevance drives viewing behavior independent of low-level salience in rhesus macaques

Mimic me while playing! Social tolerance and rapid facial mimicry in macaques (Macaca tonkeana and Macaca fuscata).

Toward a Standardized Test of Fearful Temperament in Primates: A Sensitive Alternative to the Human Intruder Task for Laboratory-Housed Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About