Dogs That Don't Bark in the Night: How to Investigate the Lack of a Domain of Expertise?

Abstract

Despite being excellent observers' of each others' behavior, vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) appear to be surprisingly ignorant about the behavior of the species that prey upon them. In particular, they fail to attend to many of the visual cues created by their predators. One explanation for this lack of attentiveness is that natural selection has favored skills in the social domain that cannot be extended to non-social contexts. In this paper, we review the ways that the term "domain" has been used in studies of children's cognitive development. We then examine the extent to which hypotheses based on domain-specific adaptations satisfactorily account for patterns of predator detection in vervet monkeys. We contrast domain-specific explanations with more general explanations based on classical conditioning and the relative salience of visual and auditory cues. Finally, we examine vervets' perception of causality and contrast their recognition of cause-effect relations in social and nonsocial contexts.