Evidence for Kinship Information Contained in the Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta) Face
Evidence for Kinship Information Contained in the Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta) Face
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DOI：
10.1037/a0025081
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发表时间：
2012-08-01
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
Paukner, Annika
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bower, Seth;Suomi, Stephen J.;Paukner, Annika
识别亲属的能力是灵长类动物的一项重要的社会技能。人类擅长利用面部相似性来识别可能的亲属，有证据表明，非人类灵长类动物也能够利用面部相似性来判断亲属关系。然而，非人灵长类的脸是否以及如何包含亲属关系信息仍不清楚。为了测试在相关的非人类灵长类动物中是否存在客观可测量的面部相似性，我们比较了相关的(同父异父的姐妹)和不相关的成年雌性恒河猴(猕猴)的面部测量。首先使用主成分分析将面部测量总结为5个因素。这些因素在相关猕猴面部之间的差异与随机的无关猕猴和年龄匹配的无关猕猴面部之间的差异进行了比较。近缘猕猴之间面部测量的差异显著小于任何一组不相关猕猴的面部测量差异，构成了猕猴面部相似性的客观衡量标准。这些结果表明，猕猴的脸部含有亲缘关系信息，表明非人灵长类动物可能部分依靠面部相似性来区分亲缘关系。
The ability to recognize kin is an important social skill for primates. Humans are adept at using facial similarity to recognize likely kin, and there is evidence that nonhuman primates are also able to use facial similarity to make judgments about kinship. However, if and how nonhuman primate faces actually contain kinship information remains unclear. To test whether there is objectively measurable facial similarity in related nonhuman primates, we compared facial measurements from related (paternal half-sisters) and unrelated adult female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Facial measurements were first summarized into 5 factors using a principal component analysis. Differences in these factors between the faces of related macaques were compared with differences between the faces of random unrelated macaques and of age-matched unrelated macaques. The difference in facial measurements between related macaques was significantly smaller than the difference in facial measurements of either group of unrelated macaques, constituting an objective measure of facial similarity in macaque kin. These results indicate that kinship information is contained in the rhesus macaque face and suggest that nonhuman primates may rely in part on facial similarity to distinguish kin.