| Many animal species including humans are endowed with the ability
to use biological cues
and can extract information by observing other individuals. This study
explored whether the macaque
monkey could use biological cue to ?nd a hidden target. When the experimenter
hid food in one hand
and crossed and uncrossed hands quickly, the monkey had no dif?culty in
?nding the food and correctly
reached for the baited hand. However, when the food was hidden in one of
two cups and the cups were
shuf?ed, the monkey could correctly select the baited cup only at an equal
level of luck. These results
indicate that the macaque monkey could associate the location of food with
a biological cue better than
a non-biological cue and keep it in memory when the target was unseen.
(Keio J Med 53 (2): 98?102,
June 2004) |
