van de Waal Erica, Claidière Nicolas, Whiten Andrew
Scottish Primate Research Group, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, South Street, St Andrews, KY16 9JP, UK,
Anim Cogn. 2015 May;18(3):617-27. doi: 10.1007/s10071-014-0830-4. Epub 2014 Dec 25.
Experimental studies of animal social learning in the wild remain rare, especially those that employ the most discriminating tests in which alternative means to complete naturalistic tasks are seeded in different groups. We applied this approach to wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) using an artificial fruit ('vervetable') opened by either lifting a door panel or sliding it left or right. In one group, a trained model lifted the door, and in two others, the model slid it either left or right. Members of each group then watched their model before being given access to multiple baited vervetables with all opening techniques possible. Thirteen of these monkeys opened vervetables, displaying a significant tendency to use the seeded technique on their first opening and over the course of the experiment. The option preferred in these monkeys' first successful manipulation session was also highly correlated with the proportional frequency of the option they had previously witnessed. The social learning effects thus documented go beyond mere stimulus enhancement insofar as the same door knob was grasped for either technique. Results thus suggest that through imitation, emulation or both, new foraging techniques will spread across groups of wild vervet monkeys to create incipient foraging traditions.
对野生动物社会学习的实验研究仍然很少，尤其是那些采用最具区分性测试的研究，即在不同组中植入完成自然任务的替代方法。我们将这种方法应用于野生黑长尾猴（Chlorocebus aethiops），使用一种人工水果（“vervetable”），打开方式可以是抬起门板，也可以是向左或向右滑动。在一组中，一只经过训练的示范猴抬起门，在另外两组中，示范猴分别向左或向右滑动门。每组的成员随后观察它们的示范猴，然后才能接触到多个装有诱饵的vervetable，并可以使用所有可能的打开技术。其中13只猴子打开了vervetable，在首次打开以及整个实验过程中，它们表现出显著的倾向，即使用植入的技术。这些猴子在首次成功操作环节中偏好的选项，也与它们之前目睹的该选项的比例频率高度相关。如此记录下来的社会学习效应不仅仅是单纯的刺激增强，因为两种技术使用的是同一个门把手。因此，结果表明，通过模仿、仿效或两者兼而有之，新的觅食技术将在野生黑长尾猴群体中传播，从而形成初步的觅食传统。
