リスザルとヒトにおける因果性の知覚(因果知覚に関する研究の新たな展開-ヒトと動物の比較-,第24回大会 シンポジウム1)

抄録

We investigated whether squirrel monkeys can perceive mechanical causality (bouncing and streaming). A squirrel monkey was trained to track an object (target) when the object and the other identical object (distracter) moved diagonally toward and then past one another. If the monkey perceived them as bouncing, the monkey would report the goal of the target was on the same side. The results indicated that the monkey's choices of the goal positions were affected by the speed of the objects. We compared the results to those of human studies which were conducted with the same procedure. We found that the squirrel monkey and humans showed similar results, suggesting that the monkey might perceive mechanical causality between two moving objects.