Role of facial expression in "cooperative-avoidance conditioning" in monkeys.

This experiment was performed to determine whether a monkey would perform an avoidance response to affective expression in another monkey, 6 monkeys were individually trained to perform an instrumental avoidance response and were then tested in pairs in a "cooperative-conditioning" situation. The "stimulus animal" received the CS but lacked the response mechanism while the "responder" had the response lever but no CS. The responder could, however, observe the face of the stimulus monkey via television. The data revealed that emotional expressions of the stimulus monkey upon CS presentation elicited discriminated avoidance behavior by the responder. The results suggest that the cooperative-conditioning paradigm may permit identification of the specific facial expressions associated with various affects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)