Abstract
Earlier studies on Japanese monkeys indicated that when monkeys picked up various foods (Itani, 1957; Itani, Tokuda, Furuya, Kano & Shin, 1963; Tokuda, 1969) or caught food which was thrown to them (Kawai, 1967) some hand preferences were evident. It appeared that left-handed monkeys outnumbered right-handed ones in most cases. However, there were a number of monkeys which appeared to be ambidextrous in these groups. Recently, we obtained clear evidence of lateralized hand use by Koshima monkeys during the course of studies on precultural behavior, (i.e., wheat and sweet potato washing; Kawai, 1965). The wheat washing behavior in particular appeared to be established, more or less, by fixed behavioral patterns in the monkeys, and hand preferences were clearly apparent when they were engaged in this behavior. This chapter describes the behavioral situations in which hand preferences were observed. For comparative purposes, other data are reported on hand preference when picking up wheat grain dispersed on the beach. The relation between hand preferences for these two behaviors are also discussed.
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References
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© 1993 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
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Watanabe, K., Kawai, M. (1993). Lateralized Hand Use in the Precultural Behavior of the Koshima Monkeys (Macaca fuscata). In: Ward, J.P., Hopkins, W.D. (eds) Primate Laterality. Recent Research in Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4370-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4370-0_7
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
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