Serial Cognition and Personality in Macaques

We examined the associations between serial cognition and personality in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Nine macaques were tested on a simultaneous chaining task to assess their cognitive abilities. They were also rated for personality traits and scored according to a previously extracted six component structure derived from free-ranging rhesus macaques. Friendliness and Openness were positively associated with good performance on three measures of accuracy on the serial learning task: Progress, Error, and Rewarded (i.e., correctly completed) Trials. Faster Reaction Times were associated with lower Friendliness and higher Confidence, as well as higher Openness when only correct responses were analyzed. We also used regularized exploratory factor analysis to extract two, three, four, five, and six factor structures, and found consistent associations between accuracy and single factors within each of these structures. Prior results on intelligence in other nonhuman primate species have focused on basic intelligence tests; this study demonstrates that more complex, abstract cognitive tasks can be used to assess intelligence and personality in nonhuman primates.