Cite as:
Humphrey N K, 1972, "'Interest' and 'pleasure': two determinants of a monkey's visual preferences" Perception 1(4) 395 – 416
Download citation data in RIS format

'Interest' and 'pleasure': two determinants of a monkey's visual preferences

N K Humphrey

Received 9 January 1973

Abstract. When given a choice between two visual stimuli (plain fields of light of different colour, photographs, cine films, etc.) monkeys show strong and consistent preferences. The strength and direction of the preferences is determined by two independent factors: the monkey's relative 'interest' in the stimuli (determined largely by their infomation content) and his relative 'pleasure' (determined by qualities such as colour and brightness). With an unchanging stimulus 'interest' rapidly fades but 'pleasure' (or 'unpleasure') remains stable. If the two factors are set against each other, as when a red-coloured cine film is paired with a plain white field (the pictorial content of the film being interesting, its colour unpleasant), interest over-rides pleasure in determining the observed preference. A quantitative model based on these principles predicts the behaviour in a variety of situations with great accuracy.

Restricted material:

 Full-text PDF size: 2433 Kb

Your computer (IP address: 50.17.109.248) has not been recognised as being on a network authorised to view the full text or references of this article. This content is part of our deep back archive. If you are a member of a university library that has a subscription to the journal, please contact your serials librarian (subscriptions information).