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Do squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) predict that looking leads to touching?

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Abstract

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) were tested using an expectancy violation procedure to assess whether they use an actor’s gaze direction, signaled by congruent head and eye orientation, to predict subsequent behavior. The monkeys visually habituated to a repeated sequence in which the actor (a familiar human or a puppet) looked at an object and then picked it up, but they did not react strongly when the actor looked at an object but then picked up another object. Capuchin monkeys’ responses in the puppet condition were slightly more suggestive of expectancy. There was no differential responding to congruent versus incongruent look–touch sequences when familiarization trials were omitted. The weak findings contrast with a strongly positive result previously reported for tamarin monkeys. Additional evidence is required before concluding that behavior prediction based on gaze cues typifies primates; other approaches for studying how they process attention cues are indicated.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, Sports, and Technology (MEXT) for Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 13410026 to K. Fujita, and 21st Century Center-of-Excellence Program D-2 to Kyoto University. The research described in this article complies with current laws on animal experiments in Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, Stirling , Scotland

    James R. Anderson

  2. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Hika Kuroshima, Hiroko Kuwahata & Kazuo Fujita

Authors
  1. James R. Anderson
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  2. Hika Kuroshima
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  3. Hiroko Kuwahata
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  4. Kazuo Fujita
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Correspondence to James R. Anderson.

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Anderson, J.R., Kuroshima, H., Kuwahata, H. et al. Do squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) predict that looking leads to touching?. Anim Cogn 7, 185–192 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0209-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0209-z

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