Tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) show understanding of human attentional states when requesting food held by a human
Tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) show understanding of human attentional states when requesting food held by a human
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DOI：
10.1007/s10071-009-0248-6
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发表时间：
2010-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Fujita, Kazuo
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hattori, Yuko;Kuroshima, Hika;Fujita, Kazuo
研究人员调查了非人类灵长类动物在多大程度上理解他人的注意力状态，因为这种能力被认为是心理理论的重要先决条件。然而，以前的研究使用食物请求任务未能表明，非人类灵长类动物的属性感知他人作为他们的注意力状态的函数。一个可能的原因是，要求食物的任务可能要求受试者不仅要考虑到实验者的注意力状态，而且要将其引向食物。本研究测试了卷尾猴在食物请求任务中对他人注意状态的理解。在第一种情况下，猴子只需要引起实验者的注意。在第二种情况下，猴子需要吸引实验者的注意力，并将其引向桌子上的食物。结果表明，卷尾猴只有在前一种情况下才能理解实验者的注意力变化。这表明，以前的任务，需要参考手势，缺乏在大多数非人类灵长类动物，未能揭示人类的注意力状态的敏感性，因为受试者可能没有理解的请求情况。总之，卷尾猴可以理解他人注意力状态的变化，尽管与人类相比，这种能力似乎有限。
Researchers have investigated to what extent non-human primates understand others' attentional states, as this ability is considered an important prerequisite for theory of mind. However, previous studies using food requesting tasks have failed to show that non-human primates attribute perception to others as a function of their attentional states. One possible reason is that food requesting tasks may require subjects not only to take into account an experimenter's attentional state but also to direct it toward the food. The present study tested tufted capuchin monkeys' (Cebus apella) understanding of others' attentional states in a food requesting task. In the first situation, monkeys were required only to attract an experimenter's attention. In the second situation, the monkeys were required to both attract the experimenter's attention and direct it toward food on a table. The results revealed that capuchin monkeys showed evidence of understanding the experimenter's attentional variations only in the former condition. This suggests that previous tasks, requiring referential gestures, lacking in most non-human primates, failed to reveal sensitivity to human attentional states because the subjects might not have understood the requesting situation. In conclusion, capuchin monkeys can understand variations in others' attentional states, although this ability appears limited compared to what is seen in humans.