Field experiments with wild primates reveal no consistent dominance-based bias in social learning

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Version: Author's accepted manuscript
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Serval ID
serval:BIB_8052502239E7
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Field experiments with wild primates reveal no consistent dominance-based bias in social learning
Journal
Animal Behaviour
Author(s)
Botting J., Whiten A., Grampp M., van de Waal E.
ISSN
1095-8282
ISSN-L
0003-3472
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2018
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
136
Pages
1-12
Language
english
Abstract
Directed social learning suggests that information flows through social groups in a nonrandom way, with individuals biased to obtain information from certain conspecifics. A bias to copy the behaviour of more dominant individuals has been demonstrated in captive chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, but has yet to be studied in any wild animal population. To test for this bias using a field experiment, one dominant and one low-ranking female in each of three groups of wild vervet monkeys, Chlorocebus aethiops pygerythrus, was trained on alternative methods of opening an 'artificial fruit'. Following 100 demonstrations from each model, fruits that could be opened either way were presented to each group and all openings were recorded. Overall, the dominant females were not attended to more than low-ranking females during the demonstrations, nor were their methods preferentially used in the test phase. We conclude that these monkeys show no overall bias to copy high-ranking models that would lead to a high-ranking model's behaviour becoming more prevalent in the group than a behaviour demonstrated by a low-ranking model. However, by contrast, there were significant effects of observer monkeys' rank and sex upon the likelihood they would match the dominant model. Additionally we found that the dominant models were more likely to stick to their initially learned method than were low-ranking models
Keywords
dominance-based bias, field experiment, social attention, social learning biases, vervet monkey
Web of science
Create date
08/03/2018 14:17
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:40
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