Taste-induced facial responses in black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi)

Abstract

Taste-induced facial expressions are thought to reflect the hedonic valence of an animal’s gustatory experience. We therefore assessed taste-induced facial responses in six black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) to water, sucrose, caffeine, citric acid and aspartame, representing the taste qualities sweet, bitter, and sour, respectively. We decided not to include salty-tasting substances as the concentrations of such tastants found in the fruits consumed by spider monkeys are below their taste preference threshold. We found that the monkeys displayed significant differences in their facial responses between substances, with significantly higher frequencies of licking, sucking, closed eyes, tongue protruding, mouth gaping and lip smacking in response to sucrose, a presumably pleasant stimulus. The response to caffeine and citric acid, in contrast, yielded the lowest frequencies of these behaviors, but the highest frequency of withdrawals from the stimulus, suggesting these substances are perceived as unpleasant. Lip stretching, a newly described behavior, was performed significantly more often in response to caffeine than to any other substance, suggesting an association with the response to bitter taste. The facial response to the artificial sweetener aspartame was generally similar to the response to water, corroborating the notion that Platyrrhines may be unable to detect its sweetness. Overall, the present study supports the idea of similarity of taste-induced facial responses in non-hominoid primates and humans, suggesting these displays to be evolutionarily conserved across the primate order.