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Related Experiment Videos

Object individuation using property/kind information in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

Laurie R Santos1, Gregory M Sulkowski, Geertrui M Spaepen

  • 1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. lrsantos@wjh.harvard.edu

Cognition
|April 6, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Rhesus macaques, like human infants, can individuate objects using properties like color, not just location. This suggests object individuation may not require language abilities in primates.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Comparative Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology

Background:

  • Infants individuate objects without spatiotemporal cues around 12 months of age.
  • This ability is hypothesized to depend on language acquisition and object labeling.
  • Testing non-linguistic animals offers insight into the evolutionary basis of object individuation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if rhesus macaques can individuate objects using property/kind information.
  • To compare object individuation abilities in macaques to those of human infants.
  • To determine which object properties (color, shape) macaques utilize for individuation.

Main Methods:

  • Adapted a reaching paradigm commonly used with human infants.
  • Conducted experiments with semi-free-ranging rhesus macaques involving food objects.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Utilized property/kind information (color, shape) and spatiotemporal cues in experimental design.

    • Main Results:

    • Adult rhesus macaques demonstrated the ability to individuate food objects using both spatiotemporal and property/kind information.
    • Macaques successfully used color as a property for object individuation.
    • Shape information was not utilized by macaques for object individuation in the tested paradigm.

    Conclusions:

    • Rhesus macaques exhibit object individuation capabilities comparable to 12-month-old human infants.
    • Property/kind information, specifically color, can be used for object individuation in the absence of linguistic abilities.
    • These findings support the idea that object individuation may not be solely dependent on language in primates.