Stone affordances as potential for action expression in object play in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Object affordances play a major role in action expression: (a) providing opportunities to generate potential solutions to instrumental problems and (b) shaping and constraining the motor actions available to an individual. The playful manipulation of objects can facilitate individual acquisition of functional object-assisted actions through affordance learning. We tested the "object affordance" hypothesis in free-ranging long-tailed macaques. This hypothesis holds that the physical properties associated with stone size afford different stone-directed actions, in the context of stone handling (SH) behavior, a form of culturally maintained stone play from which stone tool use can emerge. We predicted that higher SH versatility (i.e., total number of different SH behavioral elements expressed) and higher duration of the SH behavioral element "Pound" would be associated with the manipulation of medium-sized stones, followed by small stones, and then large stones. Our data partly supported these predictions. Both medium-sized and small-sized stones afforded the highest SH versatility, and a higher duration of "Pound" than large stones. As expected, duration of "Pound" was higher with medium than small stones, but the difference was not statistically significant. Our results were consistent with Newell's constraint model, which emphasizes the role of objects' physical properties in limiting and enhancing the expression of actions directed to these objects. The relaxed selective pressures acting on SH behavior may enhance the expression of a range of actions directed toward stones of different sizes that could facilitate the emergence of instrumental solutions and may contribute to explaining the evolution of lithic technology in early humans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).