Affection and social influences in great apes: a study using infra-red thermography

为了客观地判断疾病和社会因素对疾病的影响，采用红外热像法对类人猿黑猩猩的皮肤表面温度进行了测量。在黑猩猩观看各种视频片段的同时，在监视器上播放这些视频片段，并测量黑猩猩面部区域的皮肤表面温度。结果表明，部分黑猩猩在观看描述同种攻击性相互作用的视频剪辑后，鼻区表面温度下降。这些结果表明，红外热成像是有用的定量评价情感的变化。结果还表明，在人类的情况下，情感反应的个体差异很大。

In order to make an objective judgement on afection and social influences on it, an infra-red thermography was used to measure the skin surface temperature in chimpanzees, one of the great ape species. Various video clips were presented in a monitor while sunject chimpanzees were watching it, and their skin surface temperature of facial area was measured. The results showed that some chimpanzees showed decrease in surface temperature of nasal area after they watched videoclips depicting agressive interactions of conspecifics. These results illustrate that infra-red thermography is useful in quantitative evaluation of affective changes. The results also indicated large degree of individual variation in affective responses as in the case of humans.