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Macaques exhibit Lévy-like random walks during foraging in ambiguous environments, balancing exploration and exploitation. Their foraging paths reveal a continuous information-seeking strategy to reduce uncertainty.

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Area of Science:

  • Animal behavior
  • Primate cognition
  • Spatial navigation

Background:

  • Macaques adapt to diverse environments and show an affinity for new information.
  • Information-seeking in macaque spatial navigation within ambiguous foraging terrains is poorly understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate macaque spatial foraging patterns in an ambiguous terrain.
  • To quantify the role of information-seeking in macaque foraging strategies.

Main Methods:

  • Observing free-moving macaques foraging in a 15 sqm terrain with hidden rewards.
  • Analyzing spatial search patterns using Lévy-like random walk models.
  • Employing a kernel-based model integrating ambiguity, reward, and proximity maps.

Main Results:

  • Macaques displayed Lévy-like random walks, balancing exploration and relocation.
  • Encountering rewards temporarily biased search towards discovered locations.
  • Individual differences in preference for information, reward, or proximity were identified.

Conclusions:

  • Explicit information-seeking is integral to macaque foraging strategies in ambiguous environments.
  • A combined approach of seeking information, utilizing reward proximity, and managing ambiguity optimizes foraging.
  • This strategy offers an ecologically valid method for navigating uncertain terrains.