A decade of theory of mind research on cayo santiago: Insights into rhesus macaque social cognition

Abstract

Over the past several decades, researchers have become increasingly interested in understanding how primates understand the behavior of others. One open question concerns whether nonhuman primates think about others' behavior in psychological terms, that is, whether they have a theory of mind. Over the last ten years, experiments conducted on the free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) living on Cayo Santiago have provided important insights into this question. In this review, we highlight what we think are some of the most exciting results of this body of work. Specifically we describe experiments suggesting that rhesus monkeys may understand some psychological states, such as what others see, hear, and know, but that they fail to demonstrate an understanding of others' beliefs. Thus, while some aspects of theory of mind may be shared between humans and other primates, others capacities are likely to be uniquely human. We also discuss some of the broader debates surrounding comparative theory of mind research, as well as what we think may be productive lines for future research with the rhesus macaques of Cayo Santiago.

Face Patch Resting State Networks Link Face Processing to Social Cognition

“…For example, monkeys do not infer the belief that someone has about his/her own state of mind, something humans do routinely [ 66 ]. There is behavioral evidence that monkeys display basic forms of TOM such as understanding what others, including human agents, see or know [ 17 ]. However, even this interpretation remains contested, since such behavior may also arise from reasoning about the observable behavior of others without explicitly representing the others’ mental state, i.e., without a TOM [ 20 ].…”

“…The TPJ is thought to be critical for high-level social cognition, in particular theory of mind (TOM) [ 15 ], the capacity to attribute mental states to ourselves and others. Apes and monkeys display basic forms of TOM such as understanding what others see or know [ 16 , 17 ]. However, the very existence of a TPJ homolog in monkeys has been debated since the days of Brodmann, in part because the high-level functions that are supported by human TPJ, such as understanding others’ false beliefs, may not be present in the macaque [ 15 , 18 ].…”

The sense of should: A biologically-based framework for modeling social pressure

“…To do this proficiently, however, people must infer others' predictions through mental inference (section 3.4). Compared to other primates, humans are exceptionally capable of mental inference (Call & Tomasello, 2008;Drayton & Santos, 2016) and we hypothesize that this ability stems from domain-general improvements (e.g. in memory, associative learning).…”

Neural activity in macaque medial frontal cortex represents others’ choices

“…A basic feature of social interaction is the ability to predict the behavior of other individuals. Although rhesus monkeys fail to understand and predict others’ beliefs 1 , they are able to predict some aspects of others’ behavior. Monkeys are also able to monitor the behavioral outcome of another monkey’s actions 2 , 3 and to learn from other individuals 4 – 7 .…”