The Learning and Sensory Capacities of the Squirrel Monkey in Phylogenetic Perspective

Head‐cocking as a form of exploration in the common marmoset and its development

“…Head-cocking has been described for the common marmoset, Callithrix jacchus (Stevenson, 1976), but it is by no means unique to this species. It has been observed in other Callitrichidae, Saguinus oedipus and S. fuscicollis, Leontopithecus rosalia (Menzel & Menzel, 1980), and also in prosimians, Galago moholi and Otolemur garnettii (Cantalupo, McCain, & Ward, 2002;Rogers, Stafford, & Ward, 1993), squirrel monkeys, Saimiri sciureus (Rumbaugh, 1968), talapoin monkeys, Miopithecus talapoin (Wolfheim & Rowell, 1972) and even in birds such as owls and nightjars (i.e., in avian species with large binocular fields; Martin, 1990;Payne, 1971). Typically the rotation movement is saccadic followed by brief stabilization of the head in the rotated position and then a saccadic return rotation (Rogers et al, 1993).…”

Primate Communication and the Gestural Origin of Language

“…Accordingly, it is intriguing to define the relationship between nonhuman primate brain development, as found in the prosimians, New and Old World monkeys, lesser apes, and great apes, and complex-learning and transferof-training skills. Reviews of the literature and reports of recent research on this topic (Rumbaugh 1968(Rumbaugh , 1970(Rumbaugh , 1971(Rumbaugh , 1972, provide empirical evidence in direct support of the conclusion that the relationship, as is commonly assumed in the absence of hard evidence, is indeed a positive and rather orderly one. Brain development, as characterized by extant nonhuman primates when arranged in a graded series that increasingly approximates man (1959), does provide for enhanced learning skills, but more importantly provides for enhanced transfer-of-training skills.…”

Discriminating parts from the whole: determinants of odor mixture perception in squirrel monkeys, Saimiri sciureus

“…The squirrel monkey, Saimiri sciureus, is a well-established laboratory species for which considerable information on visual and auditory function (Rumbaugh 1968;Beecher 1974;Jacobs 1985), learning and cognitive abilities (Fragaszy 1985;Meador et al 1987), and social organization (Hopf et al 1974;Baldwin 1985) is available. Squirrel monkeys can be readily trained to attend to odor stimuli, and using a task designed to simulate olfactory-guided foraging , reliable measurements of their olfactory performance have been obtained (Laska and Hudson 1993).…”