1. SMARTA Color Vision Study at Duke Lemur Center
Novel Skill Acquisition in Ruffed Lemurs (Varecia spp.): Preliminary Data from
SMARTA Color Vision Study at Duke Lemur Center
Raymond Vagell1, Vance J. Vagell2, Stephanie J. Tepper3, Isabel M. Avery4, Rachel L. Jacobs5, James Gordon1, & Andrea L. Baden6,7,8
(1) Animal Behavior and Conservation, Department of Psychology, Hunter College of the City University of New York. (2) Queens, New York. (3) Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (4) Department of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology, Duke University.
(5) Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University. (6) Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York. (7) Department of Anthropology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
(8) The New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology.
INTRODUCTION
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
Psychophysical studies are necessary to answer questions about primate color vision but these studies remain limited in many lemur species.
This could be due to extensive training needed to acquire novel procedures, which may be further influenced by the age and sex of study subjects.
Training each lemur ranged from 75 to 265 minutes and between 42 to 172 sessions over a span of 2 to 5 months.
No correlation between age and training time or training sessions.
No significant difference between sexes in training time or training sessions.
We considered lemurs to be fully trained when they habitually approached SMARTA and touched the red square.
Individuals varied in their levels of interest in training; some showed interest during each training session, while others were occasionally distracted by adjacent lemurs.
Do sex and age influence training time for
novel skill acquisition in ruffed lemurs?
Figure 1: Total training time for each individual to be fully trained.
Figure 2: Total number of sessions for each individual to be fully trained
METHODS
CONCLUSIONS
We found that sex and age are not predictors of training time to use SMARTA.
Training lemurs to use SMARTA requires initial time investment that varies across individuals.
SMARTA helps to eliminate user bias and error, which outweighs the time investment.
SMARTA can be a useful tool for a wide range of visual discrimination studies in lemur.
Black-and-white ruffed lemurs (Varecia variegata) and red ruffed lemurs (Varecia rubra) were trained to use a novel touch screen apparatus, Subject-Mediated Automatic Remote Testing Apparatus (SMARTA), for color vision study.
SMARTA is a device that can be used for any cognitive task that requires visual discrimination in its protocol [1].
This pilot study was conducted at Duke Lemur Center in Durham, NC, USA between May to November, 2015.
This colony is known to exhibit a color vision polymorphism based on previous color vision studies [2,3].
18 animals were initially selected to participate; only7 started the training and 5 were successfully trained.
Subjects selected to start training based on initial and continued interest in participating across the first 20 sessions.
Positive reinforcement and operant conditioning were used for training with frozen dried cranberries and raisins as food rewards.
Name
Age
Sex
Species
Halley 2
Female
Varecia variegata
Kizzy 10
Carme 3
Varecia rubra
Ravo 12
Male
Rees
Figure 3: Pearson’s correlation between age and total training time (r(4) = 0.088, p = 0.888).
Figure 4: Pearson’s correlation between age and total number of sessions (r(4) = 0.048, p = 0.940).
REFERENCES
Vagell R. Vagell VJ, Baden AL Am. J. Primatol. 77:
Leonhardt SD, Tung J, Camden JB, Leal M, Drea CM Beh. Eco. 20(1):1-12.
Rushmore J, Leonhardt SD, Drea CM PLoS ONE 7(8)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the Animal Behavior and Conservation Program for its funding. Thanks to the Duke Lemur Center for making this study possible, especially Dr. Erin Ehmke and Meg Dye. This study protocol was approved by Duke IACUC (registry number A ).
Figure 5: Difference between male and female mean total training time (t(3) = 0.29, p = 0.605).
Figure 6: Difference between male and female mean total training time (t(3) = 0.243, p = 0.824).