Children have strong preferences for sex-typed toys; boys prefer trucks, whereas girls prefer dolls. These preferences appear to be driven by complex interactions of hormones and the socio-cultural environment. The relative contribution of each of these factors in children is impossible to isolate given ethical limitations. Non-human primate species afford the opportunity to examine preferences in the absence of societal values and influences that children experience. In two previous studies with non-human primates, one with vervet monkeys and one with rhesus monkeys, monkeys showed sex-typed object preferences that paralleled those of children. However, several uncontrolled variables could have influenced these preferences. Our study considered object characteristics and we controlled for possible color preferences. We also tested monkeys individually to eliminate the effects of social facilitation and dominance rank. In experiment 1, monkeys were given a choice between similar objects of different colors (Phase A) and moving vs. non-moving objects (Phase B). In experiment 2, monkeys were given a choice between dolls and trucks (Phase A) and subsequent phases looked at the influence of moving wheels (Phase B) and hardness (Phase C). Contrary to previous findings, monkeys did not show sex-typed object preferences. Instead, the monkeys preferred blue objects, hard PVC objects such as trucks and hard dolls, and dolls with wheels. The influence of previous reward based cognitive testing, familiarity of substrate materials, and rearing condition are considered as possible explanations for these findings.

Object permanence is a cognitive ability, which allows individual to realize the existence of an object even it is not directly accessible to its senses. This ability is essential for successful using of complex cognitive operations. Object permanence is qualitatively and gradually change throughout the development of a child. Congruently, it is not developed to the same level in various species of animals. The aim of this study is to study object permanence in naive rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), because there is still some uncertainty about the development of this ability in macaques. Our results show that the naive subjects do not have the highest stage of object permanence (and they do not use representative strategy to solve the tasks), however, other results of our team suggest that more experienced individuals are able to achieve the highest stage under certain circumstances. We show that experimental design used to test object permanence can be modified and used also for studying of other cognitive abilities. We test the preferences of macaque monkeys toward novel non-food stimuli. The reactions of different species of animals can vary. The reactions depend on the type of stimuli (food or non-food), but also on the ecology and ethology of the species. Age, sex and personality of the...