Do Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) perceive what conspecifics do and do not see?

The understanding of the visual perception of others, also named visual perspective taking, is a component of Theory of Mind. Although strong evidence of visual perspective taking has been reported in great apes, the issue is more open to discussion in monkeys. We investigated whether Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) know what conspecifics do and do not see, using a food competition paradigm originally developed in great apes. We tested individuals in pairs, after establishing the dominance relationship within each pair. Twenty-one pairs were tested in four different conditions. In one condition, the subordinate had the choice between two pieces of food, one that was visible only to it and another that was also visible to the dominant. It was predicted that if the subordinate understands that the dominant cannot see both pieces of food because one is hidden from its view, the subordinate should preferentially go for the food visible only to itself. In the three other conditions, we varied the temporal and visual access to food for both individuals, to control for alternative explanations based on dominance. We recorded the first movement direction chosen by subjects, i.e. towards a) visible food b) hidden food or c) elsewhere; and the outcome of the test, i.e. the quantity of food obtained. Results showed that subordinates moved preferentially for the hidden food when released simultaneously with the dominant and also with a head start on the dominant. By contrast, dominants’ choices of the two pieces of food were random. We also describe and discuss some of the strategies used by subordinates in these tests. According to the whole of our results, Tonkean macaques seem capable of visual perspective taking despite the fact that a low-level explanation as behavior reading has not been totally excluded.