Comportamento simbólico em primatas não humanos: panorama geral e estudo de caso em macacos Rhesus (Macaca mulatta).

Abstract

According to Pierce, the definition of a symbol constitutes a sign - not necessarily pictorial - that has no physical or direct resemblance to the object to which it refers, but that represents and gives a meaning to it, through an arbitrary relationship learned by conventionality, in a particular context. Over the years, researchers in the most diverse areas have sought to train such relationships in order to investigate whether non-human primates would be able to learn and use symbols, similar to the way humans do with the language we are taught. Different approaches and paradigms were applied, from the teaching of spoken human language, to sign language, and to pictorial and symbolic representations of linguistic concepts, reviewed in the first chapter of this manuscript. The formation of equivalent stimulus classes proposed by Sidman and Tailby (1982), though matching-to-sample (MTS), constitutes one of the approaches to the study of symbolic behavior. In the second chapter, we investigate the symbolic potential of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) from this approach, presenting data that infer the emergence of symmetry for at least one subject. We also reinforce the need for methodological adaptations and future studies, in order to obtain more robust results.