Biology subjects

Claidiere, N.

Publications and source records attributed to Claidiere, N..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

The baboon as a statistician: Can non-human primates perform linear regression on a graph?

Recent studies showed that humans, regardless of age, education, and culture, can extract the linear trend of a noisy graph. Here, we examined whether such skills for intuitive statistics are confined to humans or may also exist in non-human primates. We trained Guinea baboons (Papio papio) to associate arbitrary geometrical shapes with the increasing or decreasing trends of noiseless and noisy scatterplots, while varying the number of points, the noise level, and the regression slope. Many baboons successfully learned this conditional match-to-sample task for both noiseless and noisy plots. Crucially, for successful baboons, accuracy varied as a sigmoid function of the t-value of the regression, the same statistical index upon which humans also base their answers, even after controlling for other variables. These results are compatible with the hypothesis that the human perception of data graphics is based on the pre-emption and recycling of a phylogenetically older competence of the primate visual system for extracting the principal axes of visual displays.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

From temporal network data to the dynamics of social relationships

Networks are well-established representations of social systems, and temporal networks are widely used to study their dynamics. Temporal network data often consist in a succession of static networks over consecutive time windows whose length, however, is arbitrary, not necessarily corresponding to any intrinsic timescale of the system. Moreover, the resulting view of social network evolution is unsatisfactory: short time windows contain little information, whereas aggregating over large time windows blurs the dynamics. Going from a temporal network to a meaningful evolving representation of a social network therefore remains a challenge. Here we introduce a framework to that purpose: transforming temporal network data into an evolving weighted network where the weights of the links between individuals are updated at every interaction. Most importantly, this transformation takes into account the interdependence of social relationships due to the finite attention capacities of individuals: each interaction between two individuals not only reinforces their mutual relationship but also weakens their relationships with others. We study a concrete example of such a transformation and apply it to several data sets of social interactions. Using temporal contact data collected in schools, we show how our framework highlights specificities in their structure and temporal organization. We then introduce a synthetic perturbation into a data set of interactions in a group of baboons to show that it is possible to detect a perturbation in a social group on a wide range of timescales and parameters. Our framework brings new perspectives to the analysis of temporal social networks.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

On the Gestural Origin of Language Lateralisation: Manual Communication reflects Broca's Asymmetry in Monkeys

Manual gestures and speech recruit a common neural network, involving Brocas area in the left hemisphere. Such speech-gesture integration gave rise to theories on the critical role of manual gesturing in the origin of language. Within this evolutionary framework, research on gestural communication in our closer primate relatives has received renewed attention for investigating its potential language-like features. Here, using in-vivo anatomical MRI in 50 baboons, we found that communicative gesturing is related to Broca homologues marker in monkeys, namely the ventral portion of the Inferior Arcuate sulcus (IA sulcus). In fact, both direction and degree of gestural communications handedness - but not handedness for object manipulation - are associated and correlated with contralateral depth asymmetry at this exact IA sulcus portion. In other words, baboons that prefer to communicate with their right hand have a deeper left-than-right IA sulcus, than those preferring to communicate with their left hand and vice versa. Interestingly, in contrast to handedness for object manipulation, gestural communications lateralisation is not associated to the Central sulcus depth asymmetry, suggesting a double dissociation of handedness types between manipulative action and gestural communication. It is thus not excluded that this specific gestural lateralisation signature within the baboons frontal cortex might reflect a phylogenetical continuity with language-related Broca lateralisation in humans.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Measuring social networks in primates: wearable sensors vs. direct observations

Network analysis represents a valuable and flexible framework to understand the structure of individual interactions at the population level in animal societies. The versatility of network representations is moreover suited to different types of datasets describing these interactions. However, depending on the data collection method, different pictures of the social bonds between individuals could a priori emerge. Understanding how the data collection method influences the description of the social structure of a group is thus essential to assess the reliability of social studies based on different types of data. This is however rarely feasible, especially for animal groups, where data collection is often challenging. Here, we address this issue by comparing datasets of interactions between primates collected through two different methods: behavioral observations and wearable proximity sensors. We show that, although many directly observed interactions are not detected by the sensors, the global pictures obtained when aggregating the data to build interaction networks turn out to be remarkably similar. Sensors data yield moreover a reliable social network already over short timescales and can be used for long term campaigns, showing their important potential for detailed studies of the evolution of animal social groups.

animal behavior and cognition↗