I want to know more about measuring sighting distance, or the distance at which the animal can identify a resource or environmental features clearly. This metric has been used in multiple primate cognition studies, to understand the movement of the animal towards out-of-sight resources. I want to use this measure as a part of understanding spatial cognition in Himalayan Langurs. These animals live in a mountainous landscape. My questions regarding the development of this method are:
- What factors needs to be considered to make the methodology specific to the species I want to study?
- What are some good methods available to estimate the sighting distance of the study species in their natural environment? OR what are the preferred methods ? If you can provide some references, that will be great.
- How important it is to account for the sighting distance, when you only want to understand the general patterns of movement as it relates to foraging. For example, if I want to understand the navigational strategies that the animal use to move between feeding resources, should I incorporate this method in studying this question. Is this method generally used in studies to understand the use of memory in foraging/spatial cognition?
Thank you for your help :)
Hello Virendra; In trying to understand the problem, I’m imagining myself as being the primate under observation. I’m imagining that I’m in familiar surroundings. I remain oriented by noting, without any obvious response, familiar landmarks. I can follow an intended course through the habitat whether it is a open scene (eg. a grassland) or a closed one (eg. a riparian forest).
It’s not at all clear to me that an observer could determine how I accurately made my way along. If I knew that from time to time a cold bottle of beer could be found sitting on a particular rock in the expanse of familiar woods, I’d know how to get there more-or-less directly from wherever I was in my domain. Once again the observer wouldn’t necessarily see any particular way-finding behavior… if I was familiar with my surroundings.
Are you actually asking about whether Langurs’ mental maps of their surroundings can be recognized by observing overt behavior in their usual surroundings? If that’s the case, I don’t know how to begin. In a lab setting, the question seems more tractable. Please say more! Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers
See publication by Howard Howland (retired from Section of Neurobiology & Behavior at Cornell U.) describing device for measuring focal distance in young infants. We have used it to study control & testosterone-implanted lizards years ago.
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