The effect of reward value on the performance of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in a delay-of-gratification exchange task

TL;DR

Long-tailed macaques performed better in a delay-of-gratification task when given a low-value food item, suggesting high-value items may hinder their decision-making.

Contribution

We tested how reward value affects delay-of-gratification performance in long-tailed macaques under controlled conditions.

Findings

Macaques rarely exchanged a food item for a larger reward in the original protocol.

Lower-value food items led to significantly improved delay-of-gratification performance.

High-value items may have distracted macaques, affecting their task performance.

Abstract

In the context of a global research initiative called ManyPrimates, scientists from around the world collaborated to collect data aimed at comparing the ability of various primate species to delay gratification. Our contribution to this project involved collecting data from long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). Our findings indicated that these macaques rarely opted to exchange a given food item for a larger food reward at a later time. However, we suspected that the experimental protocol might not accurately capture the macaques' actual capacity to delay gratification. Specifically, possessing a highly desirable food item might discourage the monkeys' participation in food exchange and delay-of-gratification tasks. To explore whether this potential mental distraction was affecting their performance, we conducted experiments on six long-tailed macaques under two different conditions. In these conditions, we examined how the value of the exchange item influenced the frequency of exchanges. In one condition, subjects received a high-value food item, while in the other, they received a low-value food item, both of which could be exchanged for three high-value food items. When we reduced the value of the exchange item, the long-tailed macaques displayed significantly improved abilities to delay gratification within the exchange task. These findings strongly suggest that the possession of a high-value item significantly contributed to the low performance of these monkeys in the original delay-of-gratification exchange protocol and raise the question of which performance reflects the monkeys' underlying delay-of-gratification competence more adequately.

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