Dominance hierarchies are an important aspect of Primate social life, and there is an increasing need to develop new systems to collect social information automatically. The main goal of this research was to explore the possibility to infer the dominance hierarchy of a group of Guinea baboons (Papio papio) from the analysis of their spontaneous interactions with freely accessible automated learning devices for monkeys (ALDM, Fagot & Bonté Behavior Research Methods, 42, 507–516, 2010). Experiment 1 compared the dominance hierarchy obtained from conventional observations of agonistic behaviours to the one inferred from the analysis of automatically recorded supplanting behaviours within the ALDM workstations. The comparison, applied to three different datasets, shows that the dominance hierarchies obtained with the two methods are highly congruent (all rs ≥ 0.75). Experiment 2 investigated the experimental potential of inferring dominance hierarchy from ALDM testing. ALDM data previously published in Goujon and Fagot (Behavioural Brain Research, 247, 101–109, 2013) were re-analysed for that purpose. Results indicate that supplanting events within the workstations lead to a transient improvement of cognitive performance for the baboon supplanting its partners and that this improvement depends on the difference in rank between the two baboons. This study therefore opens new perspectives for cognitive studies conducted in a social context.

支配等级是灵长类社会生活的一个重要方面，越来越需要开发新系统来自动收集社会信息。本研究的主要目标是探索通过分析一组几内亚狒狒（Papio papio）与可免费访问的猴子自动学习设备（ALDM、Fagot 和 Bonté行为研究方法）的自发互动来推断其优势等级的可能性。, 42, 507–516, 2010)。实验 1 比较了从传统的对抗行为观察中获得的支配等级与从 ALDM 工作站内自动记录的取代行为的分析中推断出的支配等级。应用于三个不同数据集的比较表明，使用两种方法获得的优势层次结构高度一致（所有 rs ≥ 0.75）。实验 2 研究了从 ALDM 测试推断优势层次的实验潜力。ALDM 数据先前发表在 Goujon 和 Fagot（行为大脑研究，247, 101–109, 2013) 为此目的进行了重新分析。结果表明，工作站内的取代事件导致狒狒取代其伙伴的认知能力暂时改善，这种改善取决于两只狒狒之间的等级差异。因此，这项研究为在社会背景下进行的认知研究开辟了新的视角。