Social evaluation of skilfulness in Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and brown capuchins (Sapajus apella)

For optimal decision-making, social animals can benefit from evaluating others’ behaviours. Some species seemingly consider the skills of others when deciding who to interact with in different contexts. Yet, whether and how nonhuman animals form impressions about others’ competence is still unclear. In this study, we investigated whether Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and brown capuchins (Sapajus apella) can evaluate the skilfulness of others. Subjects observed two human actors (one skilful, one unskilled) trying to open several food containers. Only the skilful actor successfully opened the containers and released food so the experimenter could give it to the subjects. Our results revealed that subjects did not choose the skilful actor significantly more frequently than the unskilled one. Their choices for the skilful actor did not increase through trials nor were they based on the outcomes experienced in previous trials. However, when we considered their initial preferences for the human actors, we observed a significant shift in preference for the skilful actor. Our subjects also looked preferentially at the skilful over the unskilled actor when both simultaneously manipulated a container. While the underlying cognitive mechanisms (impression formation vs. outcome-based process) are still unclear, our findings indicate that Tonkean macaques and brown capuchins may have used social information about the actors’ skills to inform their decisions and raise questions about which behavioural measures best capture social evaluation in nonhuman species.