| Title |
Spontaneous social orienting and gaze following in ringtailed lemurs (Lemur catta)
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Animal Cognition, May 2007
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10071-007-0083-6 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Stephen V. Shepherd, Michael L. Platt |
| Abstract |
Both human and nonhuman primates preferentially orient toward other individuals and follow gaze in controlled environments. Precisely where any animal looks during natural behavior, however, remains unknown. We used a novel telemetric gaze-tracking system to record orienting behavior of ringtailed lemurs (Lemur catta) interacting with a naturalistic environment. We here provide the first evidence that ringtailed lemurs, group-living prosimian primates, preferentially gaze towards other individuals and, moreover, follow other lemurs' gaze while freely moving and interacting in naturalistic social and ecological environments. Our results support the hypothesis that stem primates were capable of orienting toward and following the attention of other individuals. Such abilities may have enabled the evolution of more complex social behavior and cognition, including theory of mind and language, which require spontaneous attention sharing. This is the first study to use telemetric eye-tracking to quantitatively monitor gaze in any nonhuman animal during locomotion, feeding, and social interaction. Moreover, this is the first demonstration of gaze following by a prosimian primate and the first to report gaze following during spontaneous interaction in naturalistic social environments. |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 142 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3 | 2% |
| United Kingdom | 3 | 2% |
| Italy | 1 | <1% |
| Austria | 1 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Portugal | 1 | <1% |
| Australia | 1 | <1% |
| Denmark | 1 | <1% |
| Slovenia | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 0 | 0% |
| Unknown | 129 | 91% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 32 | 23% |
| Researcher | 32 | 23% |
| Student > Bachelor | 21 | 15% |
| Student > Master | 12 | 8% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 6 | 4% |
| Other | 21 | 15% |
| Unknown | 18 | 13% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 48 | 34% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 41 | 29% |
| Neuroscience | 7 | 5% |
| Social Sciences | 7 | 5% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 3 | 2% |
| Other | 14 | 10% |
| Unknown | 22 | 15% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 July 2013.
All research outputs
#2,092,167
of 22,703,044 outputs
Outputs from Animal Cognition
#455
of 1,443 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,592
of 71,916 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Animal Cognition
#2
of 8 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,703,044 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,443 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 33.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 71,916 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 8 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 6 of them.