If there were a streaming service for monkeys, it is likely that the viewing list would include many of the same types of content a human would have on their account.
A team of researchers from the Netherlands and the United States reveals, in an article published in the journal ‘Animal Cognition’, that the crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and humans seem to be drawn to the same types of video content: images of familiar individuals and of conflicts.
“Humans and monkeys are both social animals with a fundamental need to belong,” notes Brad Bushman, a professor at Ohio State University and one of the study’s principal authors.
“It isn’t surprising that they both show more interest in video content that can help them navigate relationships within their groups,” he adds.
The team showed two-minute videos to 28 crab-eating macaques living at a research center in the Netherlands. The animals watched footage of members of their own group or of strangers, in one of four contexts: conflict, grooming one another’s fur (or ‘grooming’), running, or simply sitting.
Based on the time the macaques spent looking at the videos, the scientists concluded that conflicts are what most capture their attention. Monkeys running are the second preference, and grooming and watching monkeys sitting idle seem to be the least engaging.
Bushman says that both monkeys and humans are drawn to the same types of video content. “There are many investigations that show the popularity of violent content among humans,” he notes, adding that “now we have some evidence that other primates may also be drawn to conflict and aggression in videos.”
“From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense. Both humans and other animals may be wired to pay attention to aggression, because this is an adaptive response that increases survival.”
The investigation also reveals that macaques pay more attention to videos featuring individuals they know than to strangers, something Elisabeth Sterck, of Utrecht University and the study’s first author, understands as a sign that “acquiring social information about group members is more important than obtaining information about outsiders.”
In addition to all these findings, it was observed that less aggressive macaques, and lower in the group’s social hierarchy, pay more attention to the videos than the more dominant individuals.
Sterck considers that the more aggressive and socially dominant macaques are more confident that conflicts will not touch them, being higher up in the “pecking order” and having already shown that they are not someone others should mess with.
“Lower-ranking individuals may become victims of aggression, and this may be why they pay more attention to what others are doing in the videos,” says the animal behavior specialist.
“Monkeys are very visual animals. Their vision is similar to that of humans, and they have a strong interest in watching videos,” Sterck says.
Bushman, for his part, believes that the results help deepen our understanding of our own species, especially regarding what captures our attention most.
“Even this brief exposure to aggressive content captured the macaques’ attention in the study. When we see this in some of our closest primate relatives, it’s easy to see why humans are so interested in violent content,” he notes.
