Living Links changing the way animal social cognition is measured. Are photograph measures reliable?

Kirsty & BlakeWritten by Kirsty-Marie Moran & Blake Morton with thanks to Alaina Macri and Christoph Voelter.

 

 

I think we could all agree that seeing a photo of a person or place is different to seeing that person or place in real life…right? We react differently to photographs. For instance, if there was a picture of your boss, this wouldn’t stop you checking your private emails, would it? But if this person was there, it might. So, recording the behavioural responses to a photograph in humans, couldn’t possibly be representative of how humans would react to the real-life scenario.

However, this is exactly what is happening when measuring responses to photographs in primates. Scientists often use photos to test how animals perceive the world around them. For example, to test whether a dog can tell the difference between a happy versus sad person, they might record whether the dog whimpers more when it sees an image of a person crying versus laughing. Scientists can use photos instead of real-life stimuli to study animal behaviour because they’re cheaper and easier to bring into the lab. But in the absence of depth, smell, and movement, most animals can likely tell the difference between a photo versus the real thing. Behavioural responses to photos are interpreted to reflect how the primate would react in the real-life situation. Thus, recording how animals react to photos may not necessarily tell us how they would behave towards the same scenario in real life. Surprisingly, very few scientists take this problem into consideration when interpreting animals’ responses to photos.

In a recent collaborative study between Living Links and the Language Research Center of Georgia State University, Morton et al. (2016) investigated for the first time whether brown capuchin monkeys react to photos of the alpha male of their group (see below) in the same way as they do in real life.

LL morton experiment picture

Typically, lower-ranking capuchins react to the presence of an alpha male by either avoiding them or acting submissively in their presence (e.g. letting the alpha have first dibs on food). By placing food in front of a photo of the alpha male and then doing the same but in front of the real-life alpha, the researchers were able to compare whether the monkeys’ behaviour towards the photo could predict what would happen in reality.

The researchers found that the capuchins did not react to the photo in the same way as they did to the real-life alpha. Thus, a picture of their “boss” (the alpha male) did not fool the monkeys, let alone prevent them from grabbing the food next to the photo.

This study provides scientists with an important cautionary note when using photos to study animal behaviour.

Morton, F. B., Brosnan, S. F., Prétôt, L., Buchanan-Smith, H. M., O’Sullivan, E., Stocker, M., Wilson, V. A. (2016). Using photographs to study animal social cognition and behaviour: Do capuchins’ responses to photos reflect reality? Behavioural Processes, 124, 38-46. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2015.10.005

Baby Squirrel Monkeys are quick to learn the ropes at Living Links

squirrel monkey babies 2014

The Living Links staff and researchers are enjoying the youthful energy of the four newest members of the West troop of squirrel monkeys.

Loki was born in June and Norrisaur, Sofia and Gonzo were born in September this year. Loki has already been showing her cheeky personality by swinging through the enclosure and trying to get the scientists’ attention by jumping into research areas whenever they open the doors.  In fact her personality is what inspired her name ‘Loki’ is the Nordic God of mischief.

It is wonderful to see such enthusiasm for the research from the young monkeys, in fact Loki made her first appearance in the cubicles when she was only 3 days old when her mother Jasmine brought her in. There is no doubt in our researchers’ and keepers’ minds that she will be a keen student and participate well in our learning tasks in the future.

Some of our past squirrel monkey projects have involved learning shapes on touch screens, simple monkey maths and the use of food puzzle boxes. Keep an eye on this blog, our twitter account or now our brand new facebook page to hear more about the amazing monkeys and the research work.

RZSS Living Links Facebook

RZSS Living Links Twitter

 

Brinkman & Berlin Brain Rap

This week we welcomed some very special guests to Living Links. Science rapper Baba Brinkman, neuroscientist Heather Berlin and a little baby Brinkman too.

The whole family got involved in enjoying some time at the centre and sharing with the zoo visitors their many talents.

Baba broke out a rap on how we all came from a common ancestor in Africa and highlighted the variety of changes that have occurred in our evolution.

baba rapping kids watching

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then Heather jumped in to tease apart what was going on in Baba’s head as he delivered a freestyle rap.

baba and heather together

 

 

 

 

 

And finally baby Brinkman (Hannah) wowed the crowds by demonstrating the human evolutionary trait of bipedalism on a tiny platform.

baby brinkman hand stand

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baba & Heather are performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until Sunday August 24th

Tickets are still available for their show ‘Off the Top’

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/off-the-top

Our Research co-ordinator Dr Lewis Dean will also be a guest star in their final performance, unfortunately baby Brinkman will be having a nap at this time.

 

 

Wild Medicine Winner!

Lewis Anderson and Lewis Dean2 great throw by Lewis

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Edinburgh International Science Festival we hosted an exhibit entitled ‘Wild Medicine’. The display highlighted research on how animals use the natural world around them to medicate themselves and/or prevent illness.

There was a stall in town and also activities and a trail in the zoo. Lewis Anderson successfully completed the zoo trail and was entered into a prize draw to assist in giving our capuchins their preferred medicinal item – Onions!

Today Lewis joined our team in delivering ‘wild medicine’ to our monkeys! All primates involved had a great time.

To learn more about animals using natural remedies see our short video entitled ‘Monkey Medicine’

The basic chimpanzee gesture ‘dictionary’ has been translated, are the capuchins next?

kilimi thinkingMembers of the Scottish Primate Research Group from the University of St Andrews, have revealed what wild chimpanzees are trying to say when they communicate with their body and hand movements.

Dr Catherine Hobaiter and Professor Richard Byrne created a ‘dictionary’ of meanings behind chimp gestures such as arm raises, ground slaps and foot stomps by observing over 80 wild Ugandan chimpanzees.

The results have just been published in the journal Current Biology. Although it has been known for some time that apes use gestures to communicate, it wasn’t until now that we have worked out what they are actually trying to say.

Professor Byrne, explained:

“There is abundant evidence that chimpanzees and other apes gesture with purpose. Apes target their gestures to particular individuals, choosing appropriate gestures according to whether the other is looking or not; they stop gesturing when they get the result they want; and otherwise they keep going, trying out alternative gestures or other tactics altogether.’

In a significant first step towards answering this question, the researchers studied the behaviour of chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda.  They used video to record communicative interactions, and extracted over 4500 instances of gesturing. They looked specifically at non-playful uses (because in play, gestures may not be used with their ‘real’ meaning) and identified specific meanings for most of the chimpanzee repertoire of 66 gestures.

Amongst the meanings discovered, they found that when a chimpanzee taps another it means ‘stop that’; a hand fling or slapping an object means ‘move away’; while an arm raise means ‘I want that’ or ‘give me that’.

Dr Hobaiter explained:

Just as with human words, some gestures have several senses, but importantly the meanings of chimpanzee gestures are the same irrespective of who uses them. Chimpanzees may use more than one gesture for the same purpose – especially in social negotiations, where the final outcome may be a matter of some give and take”.

The next steps will involve the St Andrews researchers investigating possible variations in meaning behind certain chimpanzee gestures.

Dr Hobaiter added, “Now that the basic chimpanzee gesture ‘dictionary’ is known, we can start to tackle other interesting questions. Do some gestures have very general meanings, where their intended sense is understood from the context? Or do subtle variations in how a gesture is made determine which sense was meant?”

Our question at Living Links is will someone try and match this type of study for our capuchins? We do see a variety of gestures from our monkeys that are linked with social responses from the rest of the group, any SPRG members up for this challenge?

   gesture capuchins

The paper, ‘The meanings of chimpanzee gestures’ is published by Current Biology on Thursday July 3. The paper is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.05.066

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28023630

Living Links is a Winner in Public Engagement

andy public engagement

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our founding director of Living Links Professor Andrew Whiten from the University of St Andrews, is to be awarded the Senior Public Engagement Prize 2014 from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) for his extensive, creativity and unique forms of public engagement at the Living Links Centre and beyond.

Each year the RSE highlights some of the UK’s most outstanding talent through its Royal Medals and Prize Winner awards. The awards are given to those working at the present time, and include those who have reached the pinnacle of their discipline and are regarded as such internationally.

President of the RSE, Sir John Arbuthnott, said: ‘One of the great privileges of my role is meeting the Royal Medalists and Prize Winners. These are our highest accolades. They reflect the Enlightenment spirit of the RSE’s Royal Charter of 1783 and its remit to advance learning and useful knowledge. My warmest congratulations to all of this year’s recipients.’

To get an overview of our public engagement activities click on the link below http://www.living-links.org/visitors-2/public/.

Young Primatologist Wins Prestigious European Science Prize

Erica van de WaalCongratulations to St Andrews researcher Dr Erica van de Waal who has been awarded the 2014 Niko Tinbergen Award of the Ethologische Gesellschaft, the Society which organises the annual European Conference on Behavioural Biology (ECBB).

Dr van de Waal will give a plenary lecture at the ECBB meeting in July in Prague.

For the past three years, Dr van de Waal has been a research fellow studying social learning in wild African Vervet monkeys, part of an international collaboration between the Universities of Neuchatel, Zurich and St Andrews, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation(SNSF). This year, she begins her own postdoctoral fellowship in St Andrews to continue her collaboration with Professor Andrew Whiten, funded by the SNSF.

Do Squirrel Monkeys Understand the Rules of Language?

flora 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ability to learn patterns, ultimately the rules of language has rarely been studied in new world primates. In this study the researchers use species specific sounds/tones to determine if the squirrel monkeys were able to decipher when the correct order and incorrect order of these sounds were played. This is the first study that has used species specific frequencies in order to test their abilities. Other studies relied on humans producing syllables, which may not have been the most appropriate way to measure the monkeys’ capabilities.

Two ordered sound patterns were tested with the same rule being applied of A Bn A.

Test 1 – Low Tone= A, and High Tone = B (eg. Low, High, High, High, Low)

Test 2 – High Tone = A and Low Tone = B (eg. High, Low, Low, High)

The results suggest that the monkeys were able to consistently decipher when the rules were being broken in both the test settings.

These finding suggests that the ancestor of both squirrel monkeys and humans which existed approximately 36 million years ago would also have been able to understand the rules involved in pattern learning, thus most living apes and monkeys today should also be able to do this. This skill may have evolved as a cognitive ability rather than a direct pre-cursor to language.

Ravignani, A., Sonnweber, RS., Stobbe, N. and Fitch, TW (2013). Action at a distance: dependency sensitivity in a New World primate. Biology Letters. 9. 20130852

Ruth Sonnweber, one of the scientists from this study is now continuing similar work here with our squirrel monkeys in Living Links, however instead of sound stimuli she has been using touch screen to determine their ability to learn patterns.

sq monkey touch screen x 2

 

 

Please Knock

inti says please knock

 

 

 

 

Reliably signalling a startling husbandry event improves welfare of zoo-housed capuchins (Sapajus apella)

Kristina Rimpley and Prof Hannah Buchanan-Smith of Stirling University examined the effect of giving the capuchins a reliable signal (a knock on the door) 3 seconds prior to a keeper entering the enclosure to perform a husbandry event. The study hypothesised two main things;

1. That unreliable signals that indicate husbandry events may have a negative impact on capuchin behaviour.

2. Making a husbandry event predictable will decrease anxiety related behaviours prior to the husbandry event.

To address these hypotheses the researchers studied 12 of the capuchins at Living Links, 6 from the West and 6 from the East. Behaviours that were used as indicators for anxiety levels were scratch, vigilance and jerky motion.behaviour categories for please knock

 

 

 

 

 

Baseline information was gathered on the monkeys’ behaviour 5 minutes before and after door events, with a door event being defined as the opening and/or closing of any door in the keeper area which could be heard by the capuchins.

knock before you enter diagram

 

 

 

 

 

As you will see in the figure above there are many doors in the keeper area and they may be opened or closed for a variety of reasons. Thus hearing a door could not predictably signal a keeper would enter a capuchin enclosure. In fact only 30% of door events resulted in a keeper entering a capuchin enclosure.

Therefore the researchers implemented the treatment of the door knock 3 seconds prior to a husbandry event to allow the capuchins a predictable indicator that a keeper was about to enter. The capuchins were given 2 weeks to get used to knocking as a signal then observed again to see if their anxiety levels had changed towards door events.

picture 2 for please knock

 

 

 

 

 

 

The results indicate that there was a decrease in anxiety related behaviours of the capuchins in the after door event in the treatment phase, thus supporting the notion that giving the animals a predictable indicator of events can benefit the overall welfare of the monkeys.

This is a great technique that can be implemented very easily for no cost and no additional time and can have a great benefit to all our monkeys’ well being.

Reference

Rimpley, K and Buchanan-Smith, H (2013). Reliably signalling a startling husbandry event improves welfare of zoo-housed capuchins (Sapajus apella). Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 147, 205-213.