My PhD student @tlemeux.bsky.social is presenting the first study of his PhD at the SFECA conference !

@mawadafreville.bsky.social just presented her work on the social development of vervet monkeys at the SFECA conference !

4/6 More individuals came within 10m to the robot, and we found no significant effect of rank, age or sex on time spent at that proximity. High rankers displayed more threat and stress related behaviours compared to low rankers #AnimBehav2023

3/6 Who got in close proximity to the robot? Only 5-7/37 individuals approached so close the robot. High rankers significantly spent more time within 1m of the robot with no significant effect of age or sex. Apart an adult male, they were all from the same family #AnimBehav2023

2/6 This remotely controlled robot had one box filled with food on its back. We introduced it gradually: it was first laying down with food in the box and on the ground and then quadrupedal, slightly moving its body and its head with food only inside the box #AnimBehav2023

1/6 Robots are more and more socially accepted by human societies, but what about animal-robot interactions? Can a robot be tolerated by wild animals? We introduced an ANYmal robot to a group of 37 wild vervet monkeys in South Africa over 6 days for about 10h #AnimBehav2023

Best office ever! #fieldwork #southafrica

5.We found that monkeys preferentially used the technique yielding the highest observed payoff, and also bias attention toward higher rankers. We reported juveniles and females being more sensitive to behavior’s payoff and adults and males to model’s rank.

4.We analyzed the data with a modelling approach - Experience Weighted Attraction Models - integrating multiple SLS with individual learning to investigate how learning is influenced over time by both personal experience and observation of others.

learning is a basis for traditions. Social learning strategies (SLS) refer to biases toward specific individuals or behaviors. We ran an open diffusion experiment providing a novel food, unshelled peanuts, to groups of wild monkeys in South Africa.

2.Social

does a novel feeding habit spread in wild monkeys? We combined a field experiment with Bayesian dynamic learning models and showed that monkeys used the highest payoff processing technique and displayed by higher ranked demonstrators. #AnimBehav2021

1.How

Feel so honored to have those guys as neighbors!