英国研究人员在最新一期《动物行为》杂志上发表研究论文"Friendship affects gaze following in a tolerant species of macaque, Macaca nigra"称，与家庭成员相比，朋友会对人的行为和发展产生更深远的影响。
追视研究
英国朴茨茅斯大学心理学系的杰罗姆·米凯莱塔和布丽奇特·沃勒在汉普郡一处野生动物保护区，以生活在那里的猕猴群为研究对象，观察猕猴的“眼神追视”情况。
眼神追视指的是追着同伴目光凝视的方向看。米凯莱塔解释说，追视是“社交发展的一个关键标志”，猕猴通过观察同伴的动向，了解身边所发生事件的信息。
研究人员发现，无论身边是朋友、家庭成员还是猴群首领，猕猴都会追视，不过，如果身边是朋友，猕猴的追视速度更快。
米凯莱塔认为：“猕猴追随其它同类的目光，这样他们才能应对复杂和充满挑战的社会生活。”
朋友重要
“我们的重要发现是，追视受猕猴间友谊深厚程度的明显影响，”米凯莱塔说，“一群互为朋友关系的猕猴对另一群不熟悉猕猴的凝视目标没有明显反应，但对朋友的目光变化反应敏锐，就算这种变化微小得难以察觉也没关系。”
他说：“研究结果揭示了友谊的进化过程以及它与认知和交流的关系，这些东西先前未有研究涉及。研究显示，友谊能让猕猴的追视能力提高，它比家庭关系或社会地位影响更大。”
米凯莱塔说：“研究结果表明，友谊的影响力独立于社会地位和家庭关系外存在。”
他说：“这一现象在其他灵长类动物身上同样适用，其中也包括人类。”
原因未明
当前还无法弄清楚猕猴的目光为何会随着朋友目光的变化而改变。
米凯莱塔说：“一个可能的原因是，对追视者来说，朋友那里的信息与自身关系更密切、更有用，迅速追随朋友的目光可能带来诸多好处，比如找到食物来源。”
另外，“追视还能让个体更容易得知在朋友身边发生的社会事件。这样，在冲突中，朋友间可以更方便地互相保护，从而促进社会融合与稳定”。
研究人员认为，这种友谊关系的力量可以帮助解释灵长类动物，包括人类在内，如何形成社会技巧。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.11.018
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Friendship affects gaze following in a tolerant species of macaque, Macaca nigra
Jérôme Michelettaa, b, Bridget M. Wallera, b
Gaze following, the ability to follow the direction in which others are looking, is thought to allow individuals to acquire valuable information from their physical and social environment. Recent studies, using artificial stimuli, showed that gaze following can be modulated by social factors such as dominance or social context, suggesting the importance of integrating these factors in future cognitive studies to understand better the evolution and function of gaze following. Whether this finding still holds true when animals are tested with conspecifics is unknown. Moreover, additional social factors remain to be tested. Testing live conspecifics, we show that friendship (i.e. strong positive bonds between individuals) improved gaze-following responses in a tolerant primate: the crested macaque. Subjects did not follow the gaze of friends more often, but in dyads characterized by a high friendship index, subjects were quicker to react to gaze cues. The increased social tolerance characteristic of crested macaques’ social relationships may lessen the constraints imposed by dominance and kinship, thus allowing sociocognitive abilities to be better used among friends. Together with previous findings, our results suggest the importance of relationship quality and species’ social style in shaping primate cognition. We studied the ability of crested macaques to follow the gaze of conspecifics. We investigated the effect of relationship quality on subjects’ performances. Dominance rank and kinship had no effect on gaze following responses. Subjects were quicker to react to gaze cues provided by friends.
