Monkeys prefer reality television

Decades of research have demonstrated that primates value and benefit from social interactions. Despite this, the extent to which nonhuman primates prefer social stimuli relative to similarly complex nonsocial stimuli has not been documented. In order to quantify macaques’ preference for social information, four adult rhesus monkeys freely selected whether they watched “reality television” (30-second videos of conspecifics; “social videos”) or nature documentaries (30-second videos of nature documentaries; “nonsocial videos”) over approximately 900 trials per monkey. After monkeys learned how to pick either category of video, the group showed a preference for viewing social videos. Monkeys demonstrated an attention-related preference for social information as well. Eye-tracking data revealed longer durations watching the social, as compared to nonsocial videos, without breaking gaze. Psychological properties of viewed videos predicted the choices that monkeys made on subsequent trials. Taken together, these results demonstrate an evolutionary old preference for social versus nonsocial information.