title: Early experience effects on the development of fear in the squirrel monkey.
abstract: This study was conducted to determine whether juvenile squirrel monkeys exposed to a snake for a 60-min episode during the preweaning period display behavioral and physiological responses to a snake similar to those displayed by feral-born adult monkeys. Juvenile male monkeys born to feral mothers in the lab were either exposed to a live snake during infancy or were snake-naive. Simultaneously tested were adult feral-born and adult lab-born (snake-naive) males. Juveniles exposed as infants to a snake displayed behavioral responses and plasma cortisol elevations following exposure to the snake that were similar to those of feral-born adults. In contrast, the snake-naive monkeys, regardless of age, rarely vocalized at the snake and displayed lower plasma cortisol elevations. These behavioral and physiological responses did not appear to be elicited by a moving animate stimulus per se, insofar as exposure to a moving fish elicited minimal behavioral changes and no cortisol elevations. In contrast to previous findings, these studies indicate that lab-born snake-naive squirrel monkeys are responsive to snakes, but that experience with snakes in infancy produces behavioral and physiological responses more similar to those observed in feral-born monkeys.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, California 94305-5095.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Levine
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Atha
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Wiener
mesh_terms: D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D000830:Animals, Laboratory; D000835:Animals, Wild; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005239:Fear; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D012453:Saimiri; D012911:Snakes; D014828:Vocalization, Animal
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone