{"title":"Innovation, Inhibition and Flexibility in Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)","authors":"Josephine Hubbard, Brenda McCowan","doi":"10.1002/ajp.70027","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Innovation is a key component of behavioral flexibility. When individuals are presented with novel problems, their ability to behave flexibly often relies upon their exploratory tendencies, motivational states and intrinsic traits. Studies of repeated innovation pose additional benefits to understand mechanisms of behavioral flexibility, including measuring persistence, exploration and inhibitory control when learned solutions are blocked. The multi-access box (MAB) paradigm tests repeated innovation without prior training and minimal habituation. We tested fifty adult captive female rhesus macaques (<i>Macaca mulatta</i>) with a MAB to evaluate the role of individual traits on repeated innovation and explore the relationship between inhibitory responses and innovation. We found that exploratory diversity positively predicted repeated innovation, as has been reported for previous studies. We also found that traits such as age and personality influenced innovation, where younger individuals and those that scored high on nervousness had higher innovation scores. However, we did not find any relationship between inhibitory responses and innovation. Our study provides the first assessment of repeated innovation in rhesus macaques using a MAB design and highlights the importance of individual traits for repeated innovation in this species.</p>","PeriodicalId":7662,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Primatology","volume":"87 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajp.70027","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Journal of Primatology","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajp.70027","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ZOOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Innovation is a key component of behavioral flexibility. When individuals are presented with novel problems, their ability to behave flexibly often relies upon their exploratory tendencies, motivational states and intrinsic traits. Studies of repeated innovation pose additional benefits to understand mechanisms of behavioral flexibility, including measuring persistence, exploration and inhibitory control when learned solutions are blocked. The multi-access box (MAB) paradigm tests repeated innovation without prior training and minimal habituation. We tested fifty adult captive female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) with a MAB to evaluate the role of individual traits on repeated innovation and explore the relationship between inhibitory responses and innovation. We found that exploratory diversity positively predicted repeated innovation, as has been reported for previous studies. We also found that traits such as age and personality influenced innovation, where younger individuals and those that scored high on nervousness had higher innovation scores. However, we did not find any relationship between inhibitory responses and innovation. Our study provides the first assessment of repeated innovation in rhesus macaques using a MAB design and highlights the importance of individual traits for repeated innovation in this species.
期刊介绍:
The objective of the American Journal of Primatology is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and findings among primatologists and to convey our increasing understanding of this order of animals to specialists and interested readers alike.
Primatology is an unusual science in that its practitioners work in a wide variety of departments and institutions, live in countries throughout the world, and carry out a vast range of research procedures. Whether we are anthropologists, psychologists, biologists, or medical researchers, whether we live in Japan, Kenya, Brazil, or the United States, whether we conduct naturalistic observations in the field or experiments in the lab, we are united in our goal of better understanding primates. Our studies of nonhuman primates are of interest to scientists in many other disciplines ranging from entomology to sociology.