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Author (up) Defolie, C.; Malassis, R.; Serre, M.; Meunier, H. url  doi
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  Title Tufted capuchins (Cebus apella) adapt their communicative behaviour to human’s attentional states Type Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 18 Issue 3 Pages 747-755  
  Keywords Gestural communication; Intentionality; Non-human primates; Social cognition; Attention; Pointing  
  Abstract Animal communication has become a widely studied field of research, especially because of the associated debates on the origin of human language. Due to their phylogenetic proximity with humans, non-human primates represent a suitable model to investigate the precursors of language. This study focuses on the perception of the attentional states of others, an important prerequisite to intentional communication. We investigated whether capuchins (Cebus apella) produce a learnt pointing gesture towards a hidden and unreachable food reward as a function of the attentional status of the human experimenter. For that purpose, we tested five subjects that we first trained to indicate by a pointing gesture towards the human partner the position of a reward hidden by an assistant. Then, capuchins were tested in two experimental conditions randomly ordered. In the first condition—motivation trial—the experimenter was attentive to the subject gestures and rewarded him immediately when it pointed towards the baited cylinder. During the second condition—test trial—the experimenter adopted one of the following attention states and the subject was rewarded after 10 s has elapsed, regardless of the subject’s behaviour. Five attentional states were tested: (1) experimenter absent, (2) experimenter back to the monkey, (3) experimenter’s head away, (4) experimenter watching above the monkey, and (5) experimenter watching the monkey face. Our results reveal a variation in our subjects’ communicative behaviours with a discrimination of the different postural clues (body and head orientation) available in our experimental conditions. This study suggests that capuchins can flexibly use a communicative gesture to adapt to the attentional state of their partner and provides evidence that acquired communicative gestures of monkeys might be used intentionally.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Springer Berlin Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor  
  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5886  
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