ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
Bonobos (Pan paniscus) show an attentional bias toward conspecifics' emotions.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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41 citing papers in PubMed, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- Designing research interfaces for non-human minds: a biocentric design approach for animal cognition research.Animal cognition · 2026Review
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- Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) show an attentional bias toward a male secondary sexual trait.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- Bonobos respond aversively to unequal reward distributions.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Recognising depression in non-human primates: a narrative review of reported signs of depression.PeerJ · 2025Review
- Selective and prolonged attention to emotional scenes in humans and bonobos.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- No immediate attentional bias towards or choice bias for male secondary sexual characteristics in Bornean orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus).Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Matching-to-Sample Task Training of a Killer Whale (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- See no evil: Attentional bias toward threat is diminished in aged monkeys.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Article
- Perceptual integration of bodily and facial emotion cues in chimpanzees and humans.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Gaze into social bonds: Unlocking great ape emotions through eye-tracking.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Qualitative Behavioural Assessment of bonobo emotional expressivity across observer groups and zoo housing environments.Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2024Article
- I've just seen a face: further search for face pareidolia in chimpanzees (Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Introduction to Special Issue on Affective Science in Animals: Toward a Greater Understanding of Affective Processes in Non-Human Animals.Affective science · 2022Article
- No Evidence for Biased Attention Towards Emotional Scenes in Bornean Orangutans (Affective science · 2022Article
- Attention Towards Pupil Size in Humans and Bonobos (Affective science · 2022Article
- Evaluating Self-Directed Behaviours and Their Association with Emotional Arousal across Two Cognitive Tasks in Bonobos (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Flexible signalling strategies by victims mediate post-conflict interactions in bonobos.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Testing for the "Blues": Using the Modified Emotional Stroop Task to Assess the Emotional Response of Gorillas.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In social animals, the fast detection of group members' emotional expressions promotes swift and adequate responses, which is crucial for the maintenance of social bonds and ultimately for group survival. The dot-probe task is a well-established paradigm in psychology, measuring emotional attention through reaction times. Humans tend to be biased toward emotional images, especially when the emotion is of a threatening nature. Bonobos have rich, social emotional lives and are known for their soft and friendly character. In the present study, we investigated (i) whether bonobos, similar to humans, have an attentional bias toward emotional scenes compared with conspecifics showing a neutral expression, and (ii) which emotional behaviors attract their attention the most. As predicted, results consistently showed that bonobos' attention was biased toward the location of the emotional versus neutral scene. Interestingly, their attention was grabbed most by images showing conspecifics such as sexual behavior, yawning, or grooming, and not as much-as is often observed in humans-by signs of distress or aggression. The results suggest that protective and affiliative behaviors are pivotal in bonobo society and therefore attract immediate attention in this species.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.