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Psychology students visit national primate research center
Apr 16, 2007 12:00 AM
By Tannika King - Faculty
Nicole Shaub’s AP Psychology students had the opportunity to visit Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University on April 10. For more than 70 years, the center has been dedicated to advancing science and improving health.
“The experience was fantastic,” said Shaub. “We got to see, firsthand, the kind of experiments that we have studied all year in our textbook. At the field station, we also learned that Yerkes is one of the only primate research centers in the country that works with behavioral research. People come from everywhere to work with the social groups of primates there.”
Yerkes is one of eight national primate research centers that provide important scientific resources for advancing understanding of primate biology, behavior, veterinary care and conservation, and for improving human health and well-being. The center houses approximately 2,250 nonhuman primates across four species, including rhesus macaques, pigtail macaques, sooty mangabeys and chimpanzees.
“Yerkes is currently doing a lot of cognitive research,” said senior Anna Safigan. “They give the primates different tasks to do on a computer and then monitor which animals – in terms of species, gender, social hierarchies, and age – were the most successful. I was surprised to see how quickly members of each test group learned their rank in the social hierarchy. It was interesting to watch the chimpanzees communicate with their caretakers. They would clap to get their attention or spit at an object they wanted.”
The principal research programs at the field station focus on the evolutionary antecedents of empathy, conflict resolution and cooperation; the biological basis of sex differences in social and cognitive behavior; the role of hormones in social and sexual behavior, with particular emphasis on hormone replacement strategies and women’s health; and maternal care as a means to better understand how the quality of early social experience affects adult behavior and how social and physical environments affect puberty and fertility.
“When we studied learning and language in class, there was a section on animal intelligence, highlighting chimpanzees with their abilities to use tools and learn a limited amount of American Sign Language,” said senior Michelle Picon. “At Yerkes, we spent a lot of time watching the chimps interact. Our tour guide’s research project actually had a lot to do with developmental psychology. She was studying the toy preferences of young male and female monkeys. So far, she has found that males generally prefer wheeled toys, and females have a slight preference for plush toys. This relates to developmental psychology and gender identity.”
“The experience was fantastic,” said Shaub. “We got to see, firsthand, the kind of experiments that we have studied all year in our textbook. At the field station, we also learned that Yerkes is one of the only primate research centers in the country that works with behavioral research. People come from everywhere to work with the social groups of primates there.”
Yerkes is one of eight national primate research centers that provide important scientific resources for advancing understanding of primate biology, behavior, veterinary care and conservation, and for improving human health and well-being. The center houses approximately 2,250 nonhuman primates across four species, including rhesus macaques, pigtail macaques, sooty mangabeys and chimpanzees.
“Yerkes is currently doing a lot of cognitive research,” said senior Anna Safigan. “They give the primates different tasks to do on a computer and then monitor which animals – in terms of species, gender, social hierarchies, and age – were the most successful. I was surprised to see how quickly members of each test group learned their rank in the social hierarchy. It was interesting to watch the chimpanzees communicate with their caretakers. They would clap to get their attention or spit at an object they wanted.”
The principal research programs at the field station focus on the evolutionary antecedents of empathy, conflict resolution and cooperation; the biological basis of sex differences in social and cognitive behavior; the role of hormones in social and sexual behavior, with particular emphasis on hormone replacement strategies and women’s health; and maternal care as a means to better understand how the quality of early social experience affects adult behavior and how social and physical environments affect puberty and fertility.
“When we studied learning and language in class, there was a section on animal intelligence, highlighting chimpanzees with their abilities to use tools and learn a limited amount of American Sign Language,” said senior Michelle Picon. “At Yerkes, we spent a lot of time watching the chimps interact. Our tour guide’s research project actually had a lot to do with developmental psychology. She was studying the toy preferences of young male and female monkeys. So far, she has found that males generally prefer wheeled toys, and females have a slight preference for plush toys. This relates to developmental psychology and gender identity.”
