Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra)
Many species use facial features to identify conspecifics, which is necessary to navigate a complex social environment. The fundamental mechanisms underlying face processing are starting to be well understood in a variety of primate species. However, most studies focus on a limited subset of species...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2015-01-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.150109 |
| _version_ | 1819205152036356096 |
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| author | Jérôme Micheletta Jamie Whitehouse Lisa A. Parr Paul Marshman Antje Engelhardt Bridget M. Waller |
| author_facet | Jérôme Micheletta Jamie Whitehouse Lisa A. Parr Paul Marshman Antje Engelhardt Bridget M. Waller |
| author_sort | Jérôme Micheletta |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Many species use facial features to identify conspecifics, which is necessary to navigate a complex social environment. The fundamental mechanisms underlying face processing are starting to be well understood in a variety of primate species. However, most studies focus on a limited subset of species tested with unfamiliar faces. As well as limiting our understanding of how widely distributed across species these skills are, this also limits our understanding of how primates process faces of individuals they know, and whether social factors (e.g. dominance and social bonds) influence how readily they recognize others. In this study, socially housed crested macaques voluntarily participated in a series of computerized matching-to-sample tasks investigating their ability to discriminate (i) unfamiliar individuals and (ii) members of their own social group. The macaques performed above chance on all tasks. Familiar faces were not easier to discriminate than unfamiliar faces. However, the subjects were better at discriminating higher ranking familiar individuals, but not unfamiliar ones. This suggests that our subjects applied their knowledge of their dominance hierarchies to the pictorial representation of their group mates. Faces of high-ranking individuals garner more social attention, and therefore might be more deeply encoded than other individuals. Our results extend the study of face recognition to a novel species, and consequently provide valuable data for future comparative studies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-23T04:47:09Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-be5b61c79b434ca08d76e11655cdb6c3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-23T04:47:09Z |
| publishDate | 2015-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-be5b61c79b434ca08d76e11655cdb6c32022-12-21T17:59:35ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032015-01-012510.1098/rsos.150109150109Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra)Jérôme MichelettaJamie WhitehouseLisa A. ParrPaul MarshmanAntje EngelhardtBridget M. WallerMany species use facial features to identify conspecifics, which is necessary to navigate a complex social environment. The fundamental mechanisms underlying face processing are starting to be well understood in a variety of primate species. However, most studies focus on a limited subset of species tested with unfamiliar faces. As well as limiting our understanding of how widely distributed across species these skills are, this also limits our understanding of how primates process faces of individuals they know, and whether social factors (e.g. dominance and social bonds) influence how readily they recognize others. In this study, socially housed crested macaques voluntarily participated in a series of computerized matching-to-sample tasks investigating their ability to discriminate (i) unfamiliar individuals and (ii) members of their own social group. The macaques performed above chance on all tasks. Familiar faces were not easier to discriminate than unfamiliar faces. However, the subjects were better at discriminating higher ranking familiar individuals, but not unfamiliar ones. This suggests that our subjects applied their knowledge of their dominance hierarchies to the pictorial representation of their group mates. Faces of high-ranking individuals garner more social attention, and therefore might be more deeply encoded than other individuals. Our results extend the study of face recognition to a novel species, and consequently provide valuable data for future comparative studies.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.150109crested macaquesdominancefamiliarityindividual recognitionmatching-to-samplesocial bond |
| spellingShingle | Jérôme Micheletta Jamie Whitehouse Lisa A. Parr Paul Marshman Antje Engelhardt Bridget M. Waller Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra) Royal Society Open Science crested macaques dominance familiarity individual recognition matching-to-sample social bond |
| title | Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra) |
| title_full | Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra) |
| title_fullStr | Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra) |
| title_full_unstemmed | Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra) |
| title_short | Familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques (Macaca nigra) |
| title_sort | familiar and unfamiliar face recognition in crested macaques macaca nigra |
| topic | crested macaques dominance familiarity individual recognition matching-to-sample social bond |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.150109 |
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