The Social Function of Intellect

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Nature's Psychologists

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The illusion of beauty

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Species and individuals in the perceptual world of monkeys

When a monkey is given the choice of looking at a novel picture or a blank white screen he shows an initial preference for the picture which usually abates within about 200 seconds; if the picture is then changed for another his preference revives. The level of preference for the second picture depends on the degree to which it is perceived as 'similar' to or 'different' from the first. This technique has been used to investigate how rhesus monkeys classify pictures of animals, and in particular the extent to which they differentiate between individual animals of the same species. Two classes of animal pictures were used, namely pictures of other rhesus monkeys and pictures of domestic animals. The results indicate that inexperienced monkeys, to whom the domestic animals are unfamiliar, treat individual domestic animals of the same species as being closely similar; they treat individual monkeys, on the other hand, as being quite different from each other. Experienced monkeys, however, who have been exposed over the course of 6 months to many further pictures of animals, come to treat all individuals as different from each other, so that one pig, say, is now seen as being as different from another pig as is one monkey from another

Vision in a monkey without striate cortex: a case study

A rhesus monkey, Helen, from whom the striate cortex was almost totally removed, was studied intensively over a period of 8 years. During this time she regained an effective, though limited, degree of visually guided behaviour. The evidence suggests that while Helen suffered a permanent loss of 'focal vision' she retained (initially unexpressed) the capacity for 'ambient vision'

Interactive effects of unpleasant light and unpleasant sound

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Effects of red light and loud noise on the rate at which monkeys sample the sensory environment

Monkeys, given the opportunity to move between two featureless chambers, 'sample' first one, then the other in a way which reflects a Poisson decision process. The rate of sampling is higher in red light than in blue and in loud noise than in quietness. We suggest that monkeys 'tune' their sampling rate to the a priori probability of change in the environment

Status and the left cheek

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The reaction of monkeys to 'fearsome' pictures

Monkeys, given the opportunity to look at a picture which excites both interest and fear, choose first to look at it and only later, once their interest has abated, to avoid it