An empirical comparison of one-zero, focal-animal, and instantaneous methods of sampling spontaneous primate social behavior

Abstract

InJ. Altmann's review of methods used to sample spontaneously occurring social behavior, the one-zero method, which has a history of over 40 years of use with human and animal research, was severely criticized and was the only technique for which no use whatsoever was recommended. Substantial justification for this recommendation would raise serious questions about widely cited primate research from laboratories at Cambridge, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, where one-zero sampling has been often used.Altmann's nonempirical consideration of one-zero sampling is based upon assumptions which are sometimes unnecessarily limiting or probably incorrect and which are not supported by any data. An empirical comparison of one-zero sampling with two techniques considered useful byAltmann reveals contradictions in her recommendations and suggests that the one-zero method is a convenient way to combine the actual rate and duration of a spontaneously occurring behavior into a single index of social relatedness.