RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Processing of novel food reveal payoff and rank-biased social learning in a wild primate
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.09.25.313437
DO 10.1101/2020.09.25.313437
A1 Canteloup, C.
A1 Cera, M.B.
A1 Barrett, B.J.
A1 van de Waal, E.
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/25/2020.09.25.313437.abstract
AB Social learning – learning from others – is the basis for behavioural traditions. Different social learning strategies (SLS), where individuals biasedly learn behaviours based on their content or who demonstrates them, may increase an individual’s fitness and generate behavioural traditions. While SLS have been mostly studied in isolation, their interaction and the interplay between individual and social learning is less understood. We performed a field-based open diffusion experiment in a wild primate. We provided two groups of vervet monkeys with a novel food, unshelled peanuts, and documented how three different peanut opening techniques spread within the groups. We analysed data using hierarchical Bayesian dynamic learning models that explore the integration of multiple SLS with individual learning. We i) report evidence of social learning compared to strictly individual learning, ii) show that vervets preferentially socially learn the technique that yields the highest observed payoff and iii) also bias attention toward individuals of higher rank. This shows that behavioural preferences can arise when individuals integrate social information about the efficiency of a behaviour alongside cues related to the rank of a demonstrator. When these preferences converge to the same behaviour in a group, they may result in stable behavioural traditions.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.