Learning by observation in the macaque monkey under high experimental constraints

Abstract

While neuroscience research has tremendously advanced our knowledge about the neural mechanisms of individual learning, i.e. through trial-and-error, it is only recently that neuroscientists have begun to study observational learning, and thus little is known about its neural mechanisms. One limitation is that observational learning has been addressed under unconstrained experimental conditions, not compatible with neuronal recordings. This study examined observational learning in macaque monkeys under the constraining conditions of behavioral neurophysiology. Two animals sat in primate chairs facing each other, with their head fixed. A touch screen was placed face up between the chairs at arm's reach, and the monkeys were trained on an abstract visuomotor associative task. In one experiment, the monkeys alternated the roles of “actor” and “observer”. The actor learned to associate visual cues with reaching targets, while the observer “watched” freely. Then, the observer was given the same cue-target associations just performed by the actor, or had to learn new, not previously observed ones. The results show that learning performance is better after observation. In experiment 2, one monkey learned from a human actor who performed the task with errors only, or with successes only in separate blocks. The monkey's gain in performance was higher after observation of errors than after successes. The findings suggest that observational learning can occur even under highly constraining conditions, and open the way for investigating the neuronal correlates of social learning using the methods of behavioral neurophysiology.