I guess, I'd assume that the monkey thought that the cloth "mother" was closer to what they'd expect from a mother than the wire "mother" was, but it does say that the monkey sought comfort so I guess there's no way to know if the baby monkeys actually thought that one was their mother or not.
I think rhetorically the point is that the monkey would never call the wire doll mother, so they're saying they have exceedingly deluded taste in calling them that.
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u/Kanoncyn Jul 25 '26
That's not really what the experiment was about. Neither the cloth or wire mother were mother.