Fairly flexible: brown-tufted capuchins and a squirrel monkey adjust their motor responses in a foraging task.

ABSTRACT: Prior research on non-human primates has produced contradictory results regarding behavioral flexibility and habit formation. Most observational studies of wild primates show flexibility in foraging behavior, whereas experimental data suggest captive primates tend to form habits, thus displaying conservative tendencies. Jacobson and Hopper (2019) proposed and supported the hypothesis that captive apes' conservatism resulted from causally-unclear experimental apparatuses rather than a lack of flexibility as previous studies concluded. We replicated the experiment conducted by Jacobson and Hopper (2019) on apes with 18 brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus [Sapajus] apella) and five squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus). Our goal was to investigate if they showed a similar

SUBMITTER: Russell RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11910149 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature