The responses of female baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) to anomalous social interactions: Evidence for causal reasoning?

Abstract

Baboons' (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) understanding of cause-effect relations in the context of social interactions was examined through use of a playback experiment. Under natural conditions, dominant female baboons often grunt to more subordinate mothers when interacting with their infants. Mothers occasionally respond to these grunts by uttering submissive fear barks. Subjects were played causally inconsistent call sequences in which a lower ranking female apparently grunted to a higher ranking female, and the higher ranking female apparently responded with fear barks. As a control, subjects heard a sequence made causally consistent by the inclusion of grunts from a 3rd female that was dominant to both of the others. Subjects responded significantly more strongly to the causally inconsistent sequences, suggesting that they recognized the factors that cause 1 individual to give submissive vocalizations to another.

Cites (1)

1. Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?
   Premack, David, Woodruff, Guy · 1978 · Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Show all 1 references

Cited by (5)

1. Individual recognition: it is good to be different
   Tibbetts, Elizabeth A., Dale, James · 2007 · Trends in Ecology & Evolution
2. Specificity and multiplicity in the recognition of individuals: implications for the evolution of social behaviour
   Wiley, R. H. · 2013 · Biological Reviews
3. Vocal communication in social groups
   Fichtel, Claudia, Manser, Marta · 2010 · Animal Behaviour: Evolution and Mechanisms
4. Social Feedback and the Emergence of Rank in Animal Society
   Hobson, Elizabeth A., DeDeo, Simon · 2015 · PLOS Computational Biology
5. Prenatal maternal stress effects on the development of primate social behavior
   Schülke, Oliver, Ostner, Julia, Berghänel, Andreas · 2019 · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

See all 202