Social learning of arbitrary food preferences in bonobos

Animal Behaviour, 2000

Animal Behaviour, 2017

Animal Behaviour, 1995

Social influences affect individual responsiveness to key features of the environment, such as food. Galef (1993, Anim. Behav., 46, 257-265) has predicted that social facilitation should affect food choice more powerfully when the food is novel than when it is familiar. This prediction was tested in monkeys. Eleven capuchin monkeys were tested individually (Individual condition) and in a group (Social condition) with eight familiar foods presented simultaneously (experiment 1). In experiment 2, the same subjects received 20 novel and four familiar foods presented singly in Individual or in Social testing conditions. More food was expected to be eaten in the Social condition than in the Individual condition, particularly when food was novel. In experiment 1, testing condition (Individual or Social) did not affect consumption of familiar foods. In experiment 2, capuchins ate more familiar foods than novel foods in both conditions. However, they were more interested in another individual's food when foods were novel than when they were familiar. Consumption of, and responses to, the novel foods were more frequent in social testing than in individual testing; testing conditions did not affect consumption of, or response to, the familiar foods. Nine of 10 individuals ate more types of novel foods in the Social condition than in the Individual condition. In short, social facilitation of eating was evident, but only with novel foods. These findings support Galef's prediction and suggest that social facilitation can have a role in enlarging dietary selection in capuchins.

Animal Cognition, 2001

Learning about food palatability from watching what conspecifics eat might be one of the advantages of group living. A previous study investigated whether group members' presence or eating activity account for social facilitation of eating of foods never previously tasted. Capuchins encountered novel colored foods when (1) alone (Alone condition) or (2) with group members visible in the nearby cage (Group-present condition) or (3) with group members present and eating a familiar food that had not been colored (Group+food condition). Social facilitation of eating occurred when group members were eating, despite the difference in color between the familiar food eaten by them and the novel food presented to the experimental subject. To clarify what subjects learnt from group members when social facilitation occurred, we further analyze here the data from the previous study. The number of visual exposures to the colored novel food (as a group member) correlated with increased consumption of that novel food when encountered later (as experimental subject). In contrast, the number of times that an individual fed on the familiar food (as a group member) did not decrease its consumption of novel food (as experimental subject). Therefore, capuchins (1) habituated to the colors of the novel foods, and (2) did not take into account that seeing group members eating a food does not provide information about the palatability of a differently colored food. Since social facilitation of eating occurs when foods do not match in color, at least in capuchins, social facilitation of eating should not be considered as a way of learning about a safe diet, but rather as a way of overcoming neophobia.

American Journal of Primatology, 1998

Animal Behaviour, 2013

Animal Behaviour, 2011

Animal Behaviour, 2001

We conducted four experiments to examine the effects of individual experience of postingestive consequences of eating foods on the longevity of Norway rats', Rattus norvegicus, socially enhanced food preferences. The results of these experiments showed that: (1) waning of a socially enhanced food preference resulted from experience of postingestive consequences of foods, (2) time available each day to sample foods affected the rate at which a socially enhanced food preference waned, (3) the relative value of a food for which enhanced preference had been socially induced and of alternative foods markedly affected the rate at which socially enhanced preferences waned, and (4) experience of a food and its alternatives after social enhancement of a food preference had a significantly greater effect on the rate at which the socially enhanced preference waned than similar exposure to the same foods before social enhancement of a preference. These results are consistent with the view that social learning acts primarily to introduce behaviour into an individual's repertoire and experience of the consequences of engaging in a socially learned behaviour and its alternatives determines the persistence of the socially learned behaviour.

PLoS ONE, 2009

Background: Studies of natural animal populations reveal widespread evidence for the diffusion of novel behaviour patterns, and for intra-and inter-population variation in behaviour. However, claims that these are manifestations of animal 'culture' remain controversial because alternative explanations to social learning remain difficult to refute. This inability to identify social learning in social settings has also contributed to the failure to test evolutionary hypotheses concerning the social learning strategies that animals deploy.

Appetite, 1992

brought together scientists from around the world to discuss the following development of feeding and of flavor preferences; the role of social interactions in shaping both feeding and flavor preference and the relevance of laboratory findings in studies of ingestion to the control of mammalian pest species.