Chimpanzees’ Socially Maintained Food Preferences Indicate both Conservatism and Conformity

Chimpanzees remain fixed on a single strategy, even if a novel, more efficient, strategy is introduced. Previous studies reporting such findings have incorporated paradigms in which chimpanzees learn one behavioural method and then are shown a new one that the chimpanzees invariably do not adopt. This study provides the first evidence that chimpanzees show such conservatism even when the new method employs the identical required behaviour as the first, but for a different reward. Groups of chimpanzees could choose to exchange one of two inedible tokens; one was rewarded with a highly preferred food (grape) and the other with a less preferred food (carrot). Individuals first observed a model chimpanzee from their social group trained to choose one of the two types of tokens. In one group, this token earned a carrot, while in the other, control, group the token earned a grape. In both groups, chimpanzees conformed to the trained model’s choice. This was especially striking for those gaining the pieces of carrot; the less favoured reward. This resulted in a population-level trend of food choices, even when counter to their original, individual, preferences. Moreover, the chimpanzees’ food preferences did not change over time, demonstrating that these results were not due to a simple shift in preferences. We discuss social factors apparent in the interactions and suggest that, despite seeming to be inefficient, in chimpanzees, conformity may benefit them, possibly by assisting with the maintenance of group relations

When Given the Opportunity, Chimpanzees Maximize Personal Gain Rather than “Level the Playing Field”

We provided chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with the ability to improve the quality of food rewards they received in a dyadic test of inequity.We were interested to see if this provision influenced their responses and, if so, whether it was mediated by a social partner’s outcomes. We tested eight dyads using an exchange paradigm in which, depending on the condition, the chimpanzees were rewarded with either high-value (a grape) or low-value (a piece of celery) food rewards for each completed exchange. We included four conditions. In the first, “Different” condition, the subject received different, less-preferred, rewards than their partner for each exchange made (a test of inequity). In the “Unavailable” condition, high-value rewards were shown, but not given, to both chimpanzees prior to each exchange and the chimpanzees were rewarded equally with low-value rewards (a test of individual contrast). The final two conditions created equity. In these High-value and Low-value “Same” conditions both chimpanzees received the same food rewards for each exchange.Within each condition, the chimpanzees first completed ten trials in the Baseline Phase, in which the experimenter determined the rewards they received, and then ten trials in the Test Phase. In the Test Phase, the chimpanzees could exchange tokens through the aperture of a small wooden picture frame hung on their cage mesh in order to receive the high-value reward. Thus, in the Test Phase, the chimpanzees were provided with an opportunity to improve the quality of the rewards they received, either absolutely or relative to what their partner received. The chimpanzees responded in a targeted manner; in the Test Phase they attempted to maximize their returns in all conditions in which they had received low-value rewards during the Baseline Phase. Thus, the chimpanzees were apparently motivated to increase their reward regardless of their partners’, but they only used the mechanism provided when it afforded the opportunity for them to increase their rewards.We also found evidence that the chimpanzees’ responses were enhanced by social facilitation. Specifically, the chimpanzees were more likely to exchange their tokens through the frame when their test partner also did so, even in circumstances in which their reward value could not be improved. Our paradigm provided the chimpanzees with the possibility to improve the quality of rewards they received in the Test Phase. We found that refusals – to exchange tokens or to eat rewards – decreased significantly in the Test Phase compared to the Baseline Phase, where no such opportunity for improvement of outcomes existed. Thus, the chimpanzees participated more when they could improve the rewards they received

The Ontogeny of Social Comparisons by Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)

This longitudinal study investigated the development of social contrast-negative responses to inequitable rewards-in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Although responses to inequity by humans appear universal, this is something that develops with age. Infants first recognize inequity when around 18 months old and respond to it only when they are around 3 years old. To date, however, there have been no studies of the ontogeny of the inequity response in any species other than humans. To address this, we used an exchange paradigm, in which 10 pairs of rhesus monkeys had to exchange inedible tokens with the experimenter to get food rewards that differed in quality depending on the condition. All subjects were tested first when they were an average of 17 months old and a subset, of four pairs, was tested again a year later. Subjects responded negatively to contrast-recognizing a disparity in expected, as compared to, received rewards-based on both social and individual comparisons at the older age, but not at the younger age. Similar to humans, rhesus showed a developmental trajectory to social comparison, providing the first evidence for the ontogeny of this response in a non-human species

The effect of smoking, drinking and smoking cessation on morbidity and mortality in oral cancer: a controlled study

14 March 200

Nonexotic Neutral Gauge Bosons

We study theoretical and experimental constraints on electroweak theories including a new color-singlet and electrically-neutral gauge boson. We first note that the electric charges of the observed fermions imply that any such Z' boson may be described by a gauge theory in which the Abelian gauge groups are the usual hypercharge along with another U(1) component in a kinetic-diagonal basis. Assuming that the observed quarks and leptons have generation-independent U(1) charges, and that no new fermions couple to the standard model gauge bosons, we find that their U(1) charges form a two-parameter family consistent with anomaly cancellation and viable fermion masses, provided there are at least three right-handed neutrinos. We then derive bounds on the Z' mass and couplings imposed by direct production and Z-pole measurements. For generic charge assignments and a gauge coupling of electromagnetic strength, the strongest lower bound on the Z' mass comes from Z-pole measurements, and is of order 1 TeV. If the new U(1) charges are proportional to B-L, however, there is no tree-level mixing between the Z and Z', and the best bounds come from the absence of direct production at LEPII and the Tevatron. If the U(1) gauge coupling is one or two orders of magnitude below the electromagnetic one, these bounds are satisfied for most values of the Z' mass.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures. A comparison with the LEP bounds on sneutrino resonances is include

SOI CMOS MEMS infra-red thermal source with carbon nanotubes coating

This abstract presents the development of a Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) CMOS micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) micro-hotplate based infra-red (IR) light source employing a vertically aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes (VAMWCNTs) emission layer. Chips were batch fabricated using a standard SOI CMOS process with tungsten metalization followed by a deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) post-CMOS process. VA-MWCNTs were grown at the chip level with a proven in-situ technique. The CNTs coated devices were compared with uncoated devices. Herein we discuss the device performance in terms of power dissipation, beam collimation, thermal transient times, integrated emitted radiation and emitted radiation spectral profile.</p

First Results from the CHARA Array. II. A Description of the Instrument

The CHARA Array is a six 1-m telescope optical/IR interferometric array located on Mount Wilson California, designed and built by the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy of Georgia State University. In this paper we describe the main elements of the Array hardware and software control systems as well as the data reduction methods currently being used. Our plans for upgrades in the near future are also described