Monkey See, Monkey Do: Social Learning in Infant Wild Vervet Monkeys

In a previous study, Dr. Erica van de Waal of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and her colleagues discovered that the monkeys used four different techniques to clean the sandy grapes: rubbing the grape with hands alone; rubbing the grape against something else; biting it open and eating the inside, then discarding the peel; or opening it with hands and eating the inside. The researchers also concluded from this previous study that the infants may learn their grape eating techniques from dominant monkeys in their community. The purpose of the current research study was to observe the relationship between mother-infant pairs and approaches to clean dirty food.   The current research was carried out by observing wild, free-living vervet  in the Loskop Dam Nature Reserve in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The primatologists, which are scientists who study primates, left clear plastic bins filled with sand covered grapes in the open and observed the monkeys behavior. They continued to use the categories of grape eating approaches, which were defined in the previous study. Erica and her colleagues found that the babies mostly copied their mothers cleaning habits.

These results add to a growing cluster of research that proves that some primate behavior may better be explained by social learning, rather than genetic programming. The process of an offspring learning new skills directly from their mother describes vertical social learning. Infants learning these behaviors from their mothers have advantages for survival, saving learning time, and avoiding deadly risks. This study proves that the familiar cliche holds some truth- when a monkey sees, they actually do.

References:

Raycraft, J. (2015, September 30). Family of Vervet Monkeys [Digital image]. Retrieved October 9, 2017, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/123835587@N04/31527179612

van de Waal, E., Bshary, R., & Whiten, A. (2014). Wild vervet monkey infants acquire the food-processing variants of their mothers. Animal Behaviour, 90(13), 41-45.