Pay-per-view has always been popular with humans interested in explicit material, but recent findings show that monkeys will also pay for a glimpse of power and beauty. Researchers have discovered that monkeys will forego valued treats for a glimpse of photographs of socially attractive peers or female hindquarters.
The Duke University Medical Center study sheds light on how monkeys attach value to fellow monkeys that are considered beautiful or who occupy positions of power, in the same way humans instinctively value the input, opinions and actions of high-status celebrities.
The researchers found that rhesus monkeys are willing to sacrifice treats in order to briefly view photos of dominant males and desirable females in their clan.
The scientists first taught rhesus monkeys that each shift in their gaze would trigger a valued reward: a squirt of juice. The primary investigator in the study, researcher Robert Deaner, wrote in an e-mail, \During training, [the monkeys] learned that either target would yield juice but also learned that sometimes one target yielded more than the other. So they became experts on monitoring both targets and picking the one that had recently provided more juice.""
Accordingly, scientists were able to quantitatively measure the amount of juice monkeys were willing to forego in order to view a picture for an extended time. Because the monkeys' access to fluids was strictly controlled, juice represented a meaningful currency for them, and scientists were able to precisely determine how much one would ""pay"" to view a particular image.
The results indicated these primates would sacrifice large amounts of juice rewards, or payment, to look at images of high-status males and the hindquarters of attractive females. On the other hand, scientists had to ""pay"" subjects to induce them to look at the lesser-ranking monkeys in the clan.
The research seeks to clarify the types of decisions monkeys make regarding social status and hierarchy. More broadly, researchers hope to understand how the brain processes social information and uses it to make important decisions, in this case, whether to pay to view certain individuals.
""The results are relevant for understanding how orienting decisions in social situations occur for normal individuals,"" Deaner said.
This study has broad implications for children afflicted with autism, the fastest growing developmental disorder in the world. According to Julie Fagan, associate professor of medicine at the UW Health Women's Clinics, autism is characterized by a malfunction of the brain's social machinery.
Autism can be considered a ""whole spectrum of disorders,"" in which affected individuals lack important ""language and social interactions,"" Fagan said. It shapes how an individual views himself and others, and an autistic child has difficulty appraising expressions and attaching value to others' faces.
Investigators hope the results of the study can lead to an increased understanding of specific neural pathways in the human brain, as well as of the mechanism of autism.
According to David Abbott, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a researcher at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, there is ""something about the face that is attracting their interest. Therefore it may be useful in finding out what neural insult will diminish that attraction to these faces.""
Abbott said this study is the first to establish the ability of primates to attach value to faces, and could lead to further research and understanding of autism. He said the ultimate goal is to, ""understand why either during fetal life or early infancy autism is produced.""
