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Can monkeys make investments based on maximized pay-off?
Sophie Steelandt1, Valérie Dufour, Marie-Hélène Broihanne
1Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie, Strasbourg, France. sophie.steelandt@c-strasbourg.fr
Plos One
|March 23, 2011
Summary
Monkeys struggle to adjust their food investment strategies based on expected rewards from different partners. Most failed to maximize benefits, indicating this complex decision-making is difficult for primates.
Area of Science:
- Primate cognition
- Behavioral economics
- Animal decision-making
Background:
- Animals often maximize benefits, but their ability to adjust investment based on expected payoffs is less understood.
- Primate decision-making in economic exchange tasks provides insights into adaptive strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if capuchin monkeys and macaques can employ different investment strategies based on varying expected payoffs from two experimenters.
- To determine if primates can adapt their investment behavior to maximize potential benefits in an exchange task.
Main Methods:
- Eight capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) and thirteen macaques (Macaca fascicularis, Macaca tonkeana) participated in an exchange task.
- Subjects could adjust their investment (food amount) based on two experimenters: a 'doubling partner' who returned double the investment, and a 'fixed partner' who returned a constant amount.
- Investment strategies were analyzed when partners were presented separately and simultaneously.
Main Results:
- When tested with only the fixed partner, one-third of monkeys learned to consume some food before investing a minimal amount.
- When presented with both partners, most subjects failed to differentiate their investment strategies, thus not maximizing payoffs.
- Only one Tonkean macaque successfully adapted investment strategies to maximize benefits from each distinct partner.
Conclusions:
- Adapting investment strategies based on the expected quality of partners is a challenging cognitive task for most monkeys.
- While difficult, the successful adaptation by one individual suggests that maximizing benefits through flexible decision-making is not impossible for primates.
- This study highlights the cognitive limitations and potential flexibility in primate economic decision-making and investment behavior.
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