Abstract
A number of nonhuman primate species have demonstrated the ability to use a joystick to control a cursor on a computer screen, yet the acquisition of this skill has not been the focus of systematic inquiry. Here, we examined joystick acquisition in four tufted capuchins under two directional relationships of joystick movement and resultant cursor displacement, isomorphic and inverted. To document the natural history of the acquisition of this skill, we recorded the development of visual tracking of the cursor and body tilting. Rates of acquisition were comparable between the two conditions. After mastering the task in one condition, subjects remastered the task at an accelerated rate in the opposing condition. All subjects significantly increased or maintained high proportions of cursor tracking throughout acquisition. All subjects demonstrated a postural tilt while moving the cursor from the mid-phase of acquisition through task mastery. In the isomorphic condition, all subjects tilted significantly more often in the direction of goal location than in the opposite direction. In three of the four series of tilting that were scored for subjects in the inverted condition, tilting occurred significantly more often toward the direction of goal location than the direction of required hand movement. Together these findings suggest that body tilting participates in the organization of directional movement of the cursor rather than reflecting merely the motoric requirements of the task (to manipulate a joystick).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Christine Orman, Sarah Cummins-Sebree, and Kai McCormack for their assistance in experimental design, data collection, and analysis. We thank the University of Georgia Instrument Shop for the construction of our apparatus. We are grateful to Patrick Ulam for programming assistance, as well as David Washburn and colleagues at the Language Research Center of GSU for programming modifications and hardware. This work was supported by grant no. CHD06106 from the National Institutes of Health of the United States to Georgia State University.
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Leighty, K.A., Fragaszy, D.M. Joystick acquisition in tufted capuchins (Cebus apella). Anim Cogn 6, 141–148 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-003-0176-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-003-0176-9