You can't teach an old monkey new tricks

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Life is full of decisions – some simple, some complex. Paying attention might seem like an ordinary process, but a closer look reveals its complexity: focusing on one stimulus means ignoring another. This trade-off is a crucial decision that individuals constantly face in life. Research shows biases toward different stimuli, including danger, affiliation, and infant faces. But what deserves the most attention? In my Pint of Science talk, I’ll explore this question by sharing insights from my research on visual attention in Barbary macaques and from ten weeks of data collection at Affenberg Salem. I’ll also give you a behind-the-scenes look at what fieldwork with primates is really like (yes, even the parts that didn’t go as planned).