Data from: Acquisition and functional consequences of social knowledge in macaques

To manoeuvre in complex societies, it is beneficial to acquire knowledge about the social relationships existing among group mates, so as to better predict their behaviour. Although such knowledge has been firmly established in a variety of animal taxa, how animals acquire such knowledge, as well as its functional significance, remains poorly understood. In order to understand how primates acquire and use their social knowledge, we studied kin-biased redirected aggression in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) relying on a large database of over 15 000 aggressive episodes. Confirming previous research, macaques redirected aggression preferentially to the kin of their aggressor. An analysis that controlled for the rate of affiliation between aggressors and targets of redirection showed that macaques identified the relatives of group mates on the basis of the frequency of their ongoing associations. By contrast, having observed group mates interact with their mother as infants did not increase the monkeys' success in correctly identifying kin relationships among third parties. Inter-individual variation in the successful identification of the kin of aggressors and in redirecting aggression accordingly translated into differences in the amount of aggression received, highlighting a selective advantage for those individuals that were better able to acquire and use social knowledge.

在复杂社会群体中开展社会活动时，掌握群体成员间现存的社会关系知识，有助于更精准地预测其行为表现。尽管这类社会认知能力已在诸多动物类群中得到验证，但动物如何获取此类知识及其功能层面的意义，目前仍知之甚少。为探究灵长类动物如何获取并运用社会知识，我们依托包含15000余次攻击事件的大型数据库，对日本猴（Macaca fuscata）的亲属偏向性转移攻击（kin-biased redirected aggression）展开了研究。本研究验证了此前的研究结论：日本猴会优先将攻击行为转向攻击者的亲属。通过控制攻击者与转移攻击目标间的亲和行为发生频率进行协变量分析后发现，日本猴可通过当前群体内的交往频次来识别群体成员的亲属关系。与之形成对比的是，幼年时期观察过群体同伴与其母亲的互动场景，并未提升猴子正确识别第三方亲属关系的成功率。个体间在识别攻击者亲属及相应实施转移攻击的成功率上存在差异，这种差异最终反映在其所承受的攻击总量不同，这凸显了那些更善于获取并运用社会知识的个体所拥有的演化选择优势。