Gambling and Decision-Making Among Primates: The Primate Gambling Task

Humans have a tendency to engage in economically irrational behaviors such as gambling, which typically leads to long-term financial losses. While there has been much research on human gambling behavior, relatively little work has been done to explore the evolutionary origins of this behavior. To examine the adaptive pressures that may have led to this seemingly irrational behavior in humans, nonhuman primates were tested to explore their reactions to gambling type scenarios. Several experiments based on traditional human economic experiments were adapted for use with a wider variety of primate species including chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys. This allowed for testing multiple species using similar methodologies in order to make more accurate comparisons of species abilities. This series of tasks helps to elucidate risky decisionmaking behavior in three primate species. INDEX WORDS: Gambling, Nonhuman primates, Chimpanzee, Capuchin monkey, Iowa Gambling Task GAMBLING AND DECISION-MAKING AMONG PRIMATES: THE PRIMATE GAMBLING TASK