Intrinsic anticipatory motives in non-human primate food consumption behavior.

ABSTRACT: Future-oriented behavior is regarded as a cornerstone of human cognition. One key phenomenon through which future orientation can be studied is the delay of gratification, when consumption of an immediate reward is withstood to achieve a larger reward later. The delays used in animal delay of gratification paradigms are rather short to be considered relevant for studying human-like future orientation. Here, for the first time, we show that rhesus macaques exhibit human-relevant future orientation downregulating their operant food consumption in anticipation of a nutritionally equivalent but more palatable food with an unprecedentedly long delay of approximately 2.5 h. Importantly, this behavior is not a result of conditioning but intrinsic to the animals. Our results show that the cognitiv

SUBMITTER: Inkeller J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10981109 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature