title: Model-observer similarity, error modeling and social learning in rhesus macaques.
abstract: Monkeys readily learn to discriminate between rewarded and unrewarded items or actions by observing their conspecifics. However, they do not systematically learn from humans. Understanding what makes human-to-monkey transmission of knowledge work or fail could help identify mediators and moderators of social learning that operate regardless of language or culture, and transcend inter-species differences. Do monkeys fail to learn when human models show a behavior too dissimilar from the animals' own, or when they show a faultless performance devoid of error? To address this question, six rhesus macaques trained to find which object within a pair concealed a food reward were successively tested with three models: a familiar conspecific, a 'stimulus-enhancing' human actively drawing the animal's attention to one object of the pair without actually performing the task, and a 'monkey-like' human performing the task in the same way as the monkey model did. Reward was manipulated to ensure that all models showed equal proportions of errors and successes. The 'monkey-like' human model improved the animals' subsequent object discrimination learning as much as a conspecific did, whereas the 'stimulus-enhancing' human model tended on the contrary to retard learning. Modeling errors rather than successes optimized learning from the monkey and 'monkey-like' models, while exacerbating the adverse effect of the 'stimulus-enhancing' model. These findings identify error modeling as a moderator of social learning in monkeys that amplifies the models' influence, whether beneficial or detrimental. By contrast, model-observer similarity in behavior emerged as a mediator of social learning, that is, a prerequisite for a model to work in the first place. The latter finding suggests that, as preverbal infants, macaques need to perceive the model as 'like-me' and that, once this condition is fulfilled, any agent can become an effective model.
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France ; CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France ; University Lyon, Lyon, France ; Institut de Médecine Environnementale, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Monfardini
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France ; CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France ; University Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Fadila
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hadj-Bouziane
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France ; CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, ImpAct Team, Lyon, France ; University Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Martine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meunier
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D019370:Observation; D012201:Reward; D012919:Social Behavior; D013045:Species Specificity