Sarah Brosnan:
(Wednesday, June 27, 9am)
When we talk about human cooperation, we often use language that focuses on feelings: partners “like” each other or are “frustrated” by the other’s behavior. Other species also cooperate, but we tend to focus more on the outcomes of their interactions than onwhat they feel. This is due in no small part to the difficulty of knowing what they feel; unlike with humans, we can’t simply ask them. However, looking at their behavioral reactions during such interactions may give us some insight into their affective state. One of the foci of my work concerns how non-human primates respond when they are treated less well than a partner. Our data indicate that, like humans, other species feel frustrated or agitated by these interactions. I propose that these feelings are among the proximate mechanisms that lead the animal to quit cooperating or to change partners, both of which are partner choice mechanisms that benefit individuals in the long run. I will present these results and consider the degree to which we can understand what other species are feeling.
Brosnan, S. F., & Bshary, R. (2016). On potential links between inequity aversion and the structure of interactions for the evolution of cooperation. Behaviour, 153(9-11), 1267-1292.
Brosnan, S. F., & de Waal, F. B. (2014). Evolution of responses to (un) fairness. Science, 346(6207), 1251776.
Brosnan, S. F., Beran, M. J., Parrish, A. E., Price, S. A., & Wilson, B. J. (2013). Comparative approaches to studying strategy: Towards an evolutionary account of primate decision making. Evolutionary Psychology, 11(3),
With your research with the 5 different capuchin monkeys, if I understand correctly you have dealth with male\female pairs, kin and non-kin, as well as same-sex pairs. Have you tried making these tests with different “dominance pairs”, and by that I mean trying to make the most dominant with the most subordinate cooperate with each other, both on the separated counterweight task and the clumped one. Would parterns of similar dominance rank cooperate more\better or would they cooperate at all, depending on their dominance status difference, on the clumped counterweight taks?
ReplyDeleteYes, we have! In the cooperation tasks, our sample sizes are too small to say much statistically, but they are generally willing to cooperate even across rather large dominance differences, although I would be surprised if dominance doesn't influence cooperation in some ways that we just aren't seeing in these studies. In the inequity tests, we find that dominance does not seem to influence responses in capuchins, but does sometimes do so in chimpanzees. When dominance plays a role, it is always as you would expect - the more dominant individual is more upset by getting a less preferred reward.
DeleteIn the mix model from which you conclude that the lenght of the relationship was the best predictor of their wiligness to participate or of their behavioral response to inequity, did you map the social network to consider the relation between each pair of individual? Not sure if I got it right. Thank you for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteWe did not do a social network analysis, but included in our statistical model how long they had lived together and a composite sociality index that was a weighted average of the time they spent grooming, in contact, and in proximity with one another during our weekly observations. If you want more detail, the reference is: Brosnan et al (2015). Personality influences responses to inequity and contrast in chimpanzees. Animal Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.12.019
DeleteDuring the questions period at the end, you, Mrs Brosnan, mentioned that you don't really know yet if the chimpanzees have long term memory. In fact, do you have any hypothesis or opinion on their long term memory based on all your observations and researches? (Because you also said that some of them seem to be recognizing you after few years)
ReplyDeleteYes, I am certain that they do have good long term memories in general, I just meant that we were not sure in the specific context of remembering favors. Thanks for asking for the clarification!
DeleteBien que l’on ne peut être certain à 100%, il semble bien que les singes dans l’une des études Sarah Brosman ressentent ce que nous, humains, ressentons. Effectivement, la manière dont ils réagissent lorsqu’ils reçoivent un concombre après qu’ils aient vu leur partenaire recevoir un raisin semble bien démontrer qu’ils sont vexés. Si j’ai bien compris ses propos, il n’était toutefois pas si clair s’ils comprennent clairement ce que leur partenaire pense d’eux. Conséquemment, je me demande si la conférencière a mené (ou pense mené) d’autres études pour aller vérifier ceci en regardant d’autres émotions ressenties par les singes, telles que la compassion ou le regret.
ReplyDeleteThere has recently been a lot of interest in studying emotions in other species, which I think is an important line of work. It is an area that one of my graduate students, Mackenzie Smith, is beginning to explore, and I hope that in a few years we will understand far more about animals' emotions.
DeleteThank you for the response. I will check it out surely. It is really appreciated.
DeleteSuch research allow for comparative psychology to move further away from folk psychology by scientifically demonstrating the continuity of social behaviours across primates. I think it would be really interesting to do further research in a modified paradigm that would allow to verify the interactions of a social group towards sharing rather than just in dyads, which I believe would add more ecological validity to the methodology.
ReplyDeleteHowever I must say I'd find myself on the side of the committee who'd say it is obvious that monkeys would care. In fact, some of the protocols used on caged monkeys had me remember the fable of ''The Little Black Girl in Search of God''.
We are indeed doing just that, moving these paradigms to the entire social group. However, the group dynamics are sufficiently complex that it is difficult to interpret without first gaining an understanding of what they do in more controlled circumstances.
DeleteI was really interested in the point that Kristin Andrews brought up at the end about the social norms among the chimpanzees being influenced by the fact that they live in captivity. I was wondering what the chimpanzees' senses of inequity would look like in an environment which is more competitive and without human involvement. In captivity, the chimpanzees don´t really have to compete for resources and they all recieve similar treatment, but in nature they may be accustomed to a social environment where inequity is more common. So I wonder how their senses of inequity would change in response to this.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great question. I suspect that we will find inequity in different contexts, for instance cooperative hunting (or the sharing subsequent to a hunt) or social contexts such as coalition partners. One possible hypothesis is that they will be less sensitive to inequity, because they are accustomed to a greater degree of difference in outcomes. Another hypothesis is that they will be more sensitive to inequity, both because their interactions have greater costs and because they (probably) have larger social groups from whom to draw potential partners. Of course, the only way to know this will be to study these questions in the wild.
DeleteI think we all knew monkeys/Chimpanzees are very smart, but I had no idea they could be conscious of the necessity of their partner’s help, and that they would help their partner even thought they wouldn’t get anything in return. I was also very impressed with Sarah’s comment regarding the link between short-term memory and the motivation to help a partner (e.g. grooming in the morning = I will help you later).
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated the part were Sarah explained that all her studies were made in the respect of the relations of Chimpanzees in their group and on their cooperation. She seems passionate about the animals she works with and I think we all have a lot to learn from that. The social behavior of Chimpanzees proves that they are conscious of many things such as the risk of helping a partner and not getting anything from it because the partner would not share their food afterwards. The possibility of the monkeys/chimpanzees to feel frustrated when there is contrast (partner getting a better fruit) also shows how conscious they can be of others.
I'm glad you enjoyed my talk!
DeleteIs it possible that the omnipotence of the human researchers and trainers could have an impact on their social behavior - like an audience effect ? Or is the behavior seen in captivity basicly the same as in nature when it comes to altruistic behavior ? Is there a way to find out?
ReplyDeleteHere is a link about the observation by scientists of a male marmoset caring for a/his dying female partner I've found after reading an article of BBC nature:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26924936
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10329-014-0412-8
Maybe Mrs Brosnan has more informations about the behaviour and/or could comment?
In the fairness and inequity experiment, we saw that primates could feel frustrated and agitated by the outcome of the interaction, following the reward they get. Indeed, we see a primate launching his reward when he sees that his neighbor has obtained grapes. Could we think that the monkey feels guilt following his behavior? Is this a feeling that has been studied in primates?
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Merci pour la présentation! Il était très intéressant d’observer que la structure sociale chez les chimpanzés influence leurs réactions par rapport à la condition d’iniquité; soit que les individus d’un long-term group ne sont pas fâchés dans cette condition en raison de leur structure sociale forte, composée de membres de la famille et d’amis proches (« long-term cooperative partner »). Je pense que certains liens peuvent être faits avec les structures sociales humaines, sans vouloir dire que nous sommes identiques, il semble également vrai pour les humains d’être plus cléments dans ce genre de situation lorsque les autres membres font partis du même réseau social.
ReplyDeleteJe suis d'accord avec toi, on peut effectivement constater certaines similarités avec les humains au niveau de l'influence que peut avoir les rapports sociaux des chimpanzés sur la structure sociale de leur communauté, mais ce, jusqu'à un certain degré.
DeleteJe trouve intéressant le paradigme englobant la prise de décision et comment Mme. Brosnan s'y est prise pour étudier cette facette de leur mécanismes cognitifs, surtout à l'attention qui a été portée sur l'isolation de variables précises lors de tests psychologiques comparatifs et l'importance des résultats face à ces méthodes. En effet, il est essentiel de noté que, dans de telles circonstances expérimentales sur de tels individus, il est important de considérer des chimpanzés qui font partie d'une même communauté et qui sont, soit disant, dépendants l'un de l'autre, afin de pouvoir adéquatement étudier comment ces derniers se reconnaissent entre eux, apprennent et reconnaître les tendances dans leurs comportements afin d'en inférer certains mécanismes de réponses et ainsi pouvoir mieux comprendre la processus de prise de décision chez ces êtres.
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ReplyDeleteRegarding both their experimental settings for their research on the perception of inequity, on a previous blog post, I mentioned how it would have been wonderful if Sarah Brosnan and Gregory Berns could both have been in the same panel and be able discuss the differences and similarities in front of everyone.
ReplyDeleteBerns used a fake dog for security purposes, and that still generated arousal in dog A (who was given no food, instead of a less preferred food like with the monkey-type experimental setting). The famed social psychology experiment where a human participant is shown avatars on a computer screen throwing a ball at each others and "ignoring him" inevitably comes to mind.
I'm not sure if the same had been attempted with monkeys (an equivalent of the human social psych experiment) but Berns' results show that even for animals, it doesn't necessarily have to be done with a live "B subject" to provide valid data.
In Brosnan's monkeys, measuring the difference in effect on monkey A where "monkey B" isn't real but more something analog to an avatar (and with a real dog B, if Berns can find a safe way) might yield interesting results, like helping differentiate between mere frustration towards not getting a reward and actual inequity.
Near the end of her talk, Brosnan also mentioned how she used two real participants and had some unanalyzed data that indicated that monkey B (the one to whom the best food reward was given) showed elevated levels of arousal too (which Berns couldn't verify with "fake dog" (it's probably not sentient).
Another post on this page talks about how one of Brosnan's student is interested in studying emotions. In the case of Bern's dogs, it really would sound like jealousy. Pretty hard to attribute a particular emotion to a behavioral pattern with no language to clarify its nature... As much as I'm hoping this student will be able to come up with a brilliant methodology, I can't help but remain skeptical about how it will be possible to properly differentiate animal emotions when I hear that we're already having a hard time deciding whether a *human* infant's complex facial expression means he/she is actually experiencing guilt, shame of shyness...
Thank you very much for the talk, it was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you did experiments with cooperation when primates are paired with individuals from other species. For example, is it possible for chimpanzees to be paired and learn to cooperate with capuchin monkey? How about other animals?
Les primates, dans la nature, vivent souvent dans des sociétés hiérarchisés. On peut souvent voir des comportements de collaboration entre des primates subordonnés (bas classement hiérarchique). Le comportement des sujets de laboratoire diffèrent probablement de ceux dans la nature. Je me demande si la «response to unfairness» n’est simplement pas une réaction comportementale parce que l’intérêt de l’animal n’a pas été satisfait plutôt qu’une perception d’injustice faite à soi. Aussi, avant de leur attribuer des qualités d’entraide, je pense qu’il faut exclure les avantages du travail d’équipe. Les primates pensent peut-être que la façon la plus efficace d’accomplir leur but personnel est par le travail d’équipe. Ainsi, ils travailleraient peut-être en équipe uniquement pour leur bien-être personnel, sans penser à autrui.
ReplyDeleteWhen adults perceive two events contiguous temporally and spatially, they see the first event as having caused the second. Young infants have the same reaction. Children quickly learn that an event may be the cause of another event.
ReplyDeleteA primate may recognize that a large rock is more likely to break a branch than a small one. But if the primate observes a large rock resting on a crushed plant, will he deduce that the rock crushed the plant?
is the understanding of physical action the equivalent of causal reasoning? In fact, the good question would be: are primates learning events in which they play no role?
On parle d'apprentissage sociale, mais je ne vois pas en quoi cette forme d'apprentissage se distingue essentiellement de l'apprentissage tout court. L'apprentissage social exige-t-elle le recrutement d'une fonction cognitive particulière? Il me semble que la reconnaissance d'autrui comme étant un autre «sujet» ne soit pas nécessaire pour l'apprentissage social.
ReplyDelete