Monkeys think about who's watching before they steal

Yale psychologists report that rhesus monkeys think about whether they'll be seen by others before swiping food that doesn't belong to them. Essentially, they check to see where their "competitors" are looking before they act. From a press release about the study, published in this week's issue of the scientific journal Current Biology:

 Images Release Graphics Cell030305 2"These latest results… suggest that rhesus monkeys can do much more than just follow the gaze of others; they can also deduce what others see and know, based only on their perception of where others are looking. These data potentially push back the time during which our own abilities to "read the minds of others" must have evolved. Moreover, they suggest strongly a reason why these abilities may have evolved in the first place, namely for competitive interactions with others. Finally, these results lay the groundwork for investigating the neural basis for this kind of social reasoning in a readily available laboratory animal – an urgent endeavor for developing a better neural understanding of diseases such as autism, in which this kind of social reasoning appears impaired."

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