Biomaterial Database

Perception of pictorial eye gaze by baboons (Papio papio). 2002

Joël Fagot, and Christine Deruelle

Center for Research in Cognitive Neurosciences, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402 Marseille, France. fagot@lnf.cnrs-mrs.fr

Pictorial faces looking left or right were presented to baboons (Papio papio) before the display of a target letter in the left or right hemifield of a monitor screen. Baboons had to provide go or no-go responses taking into account the identity of the target letter. The 1st 6 experiments showed no reliable effect of eye gaze on discrimination speed, using either schematic gazes or pictures of real gazes. Experiment 7 showed that eye gazes facilitated target processing when eye cues were perfect predictors of target location. Findings suggest that baboons do not spontaneously process eye-gaze direction but can learn to do so if the gaze has a predictive value. Implications of these findings on baboons' perspective-taking abilities are discussed.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008297	Male		Males
D010215	Papio	A genus of the subfamily CERCOPITHECINAE, family CERCOPITHECIDAE, consisting of five named species: PAPIO URSINUS (chacma baboon), PAPIO CYNOCEPHALUS (yellow baboon), PAPIO PAPIO (western baboon), PAPIO ANUBIS (or olive baboon), and PAPIO HAMADRYAS (hamadryas baboon). Members of the Papio genus inhabit open woodland, savannahs, grassland, and rocky hill country. Some authors consider MANDRILLUS a subgenus of Papio.	Baboons,Baboons, Savanna,Savanna Baboons,Baboon,Baboon, Savanna,Papios,Savanna Baboon
D011930	Reaction Time	The time from the onset of a stimulus until a response is observed.	Response Latency,Response Speed,Response Time,Latency, Response,Reaction Times,Response Latencies,Response Times,Speed, Response,Speeds, Response
D003463	Cues	Signals for an action; that specific portion of a perceptual field or pattern of stimuli to which a subject has learned to respond.	Cue
D004192	Discrimination, Psychological	Differential response to different stimuli.	Discrimination, Psychology,Psychological Discrimination
D005145	Face	The anterior portion of the head that includes the skin, muscles, and structures of the forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and jaw.	Faces
D005260	Female		Females
D005403	Fixation, Ocular	Positioning and accommodation of eyes that allows the image to be brought into place on the FOVEA CENTRALIS of each eye.	Focusing, Ocular,Ocular Fixation,Eye Gaze,Eye Gazes,Gaze, Eye,Gazes, Eye,Ocular Focusing
D000818	Animals	Unicellular or multicellular, heterotrophic organisms, that have sensation and the power of voluntary movement. Under the older five kingdom paradigm, Animalia was one of the kingdoms. Under the modern three domain model, Animalia represents one of the many groups in the domain EUKARYOTA.	Animal,Metazoa,Animalia
D001522	Behavior, Animal	The observable response an animal makes to any situation.	Autotomy Animal,Animal Behavior,Animal Behaviors