FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIZATION OF OBJECTS AND OF THEIR PICTURES IN BABOONS(PAPIO-ANUBIS)

Baboons were trained and tested on the natural category of food versus nonfood with real objects using an adapted version of a WGTA. Four su bjects were first trained to categorize two objects, one food and one nonfood; then 80 other objects (40 food and 40 nonfood) were presented and categorical response to each object was recorded. The baboons sho wed a good and rapid transfer of their categorical abilities to the no vel items, in subsequent experiments, two subjects were trained with c ut-out photos or with whole photos (i.e., pictures with background) of one object in each of the previously learned category and then tested with a subset of photos of the objects used in the first experiment. After training with one pair of pictures, categorical transfer was hig h in both baboons for cut-out photos but one subject only correctly ca tegorized whole photos of the objects. Results of these experiments an d of additional control situations involving various modes of picture presentations further demonstrated the abilities of the baboons to rel ate real objects with their pictorial representations. (C) 1998 Academ ic Press.