Abstract
In behavioral studies, observer effects can be substantial, even for habituated animals, but few studies account for potential observer-related phenomenon empirically. We used wild, habituated chacma baboons to explore two key assumptions of behavioral ecology (i) that observers become a "neutral" stimulus and (ii) that habituation is "equal" across group members. Using flight initiation distance (FID) methods within a personality paradigm, the behavioral responses of baboons suggested that observers were not perceived as neutral but instead viewed as a high-ranking social threat. Habituation was also not equal across group members, with repeatable individual differences more important than contextual factors (e.g., habitat) in determining the distance at which baboons visually oriented or displaced from observers. A strong correlation between individual visual tolerance and displacement tolerance (i.e., convergent validity) indicated a personality trait. We offer several suggestions for how to account for these factors and minimize potential bias in future studies.
Highlights
Habituation has been referred to as “a process that leads to decreased responsiveness to a stimulus” [see page 255 of [1]]
To test whether visual orientation distance (VOD) and flight initiation distance (FID) were consistent within individuals, we calculated the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) from the univariate VOD and FID models using an enhanced agreement repeatability protocol [28]
Our findings indicate that the behavioral responses of baboons to approaches by human observers were most consistent with responses toward high-ranking social threats, active responses were recorded on rare occasions
Summary
Habituation has been referred to as “a process that leads to decreased responsiveness to a stimulus” [see page 255 of [1]]. Habituation has been used to reduce the risk perception that wild animals have toward human observers, with the outcome of such processes or “full habituation” described as “individual accepts humans (and apparently ignores them) at close range during all activities; they appear calm when they are alone with humans and are relatively easy to follow while travelling” [see page 164 of [2]] This allows researchers to conduct behavioral observations under the assumption that study subjects have lost their fear of human observers and view them as a neutral stimulus [3, 4]. While the concept of observer neutrality has received discussion across a range of species typically exposed to direct observations [e.g., baboons [7], macaques [8], bonobos [9], and meerkats [10]], overall, there is a lack of empirical research focusing on observer neutrality in habituated systems
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