ACQUISITION AND LONG-TERM PATTERNING OF JOYSTICK SELECTION OF FOOD-PELLET VS SOCIAL-VIDEO REWARD BY BONNET MACAQUES

Five individually housed, adult male bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata) that were highly experienced in single-target joystick tasks were trained to discriminate targets associated with food-pellet and live-social-video rewards; the social video afforded viewing of a social group of bonnet macaques. Most subjects more rapidly acquired the discrimination for their preferred reward. Following discrimination training, the remaining three subjects were given 34 weeks with a simultaneous choice between food-pellet and social-video; the subjects selected a reward by simply using a joystick to direct a cursor to contact the target associated with that reward. Despite some change over time, both types of reward remained effective for the extended period. Different daily patterns of responding for the two rewards were identified. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.