Great apes' understanding of biomechanics: eye-tracking experiments using three-dimensional computer-generated animations

Going forward: perceptual bias for forward-facing motion in chimpanzees

When a row of objects surrounded by a frame suddenly shifts a certain distance so that part of the row is occluded by the frame, humans perceive ambiguous apparent motion either to the left or the right. However, when the objects have "directionality," humans perceive them as moving forward in the direction in which they are pointing, which is termed forward-facing motion bias. In the present study, five experiments were conducted to address whether, and if so how, physical properties or prior knowledge about the objects affected the perception of their apparent motion in two juvenile chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). In experiment 1, the chimpanzees did not show a clear forward-facing bias in judging the direction of motion when directed triangles were presented, whereas the human participants did. In contrast, when pictures of the lateral view of chimpanzees with quadrupedal postures were shown, there was a clear bias for going "forward" with regards to the side with the head (experiment 2). We presented pictures of dogs looking back to explore what features caused the forward-facing motion bias (experiment 3). Chimpanzees did not show any bias for these stimuli, suggesting that the direction of the head and body interactively affected the perceptual bias. Experiment 4 tested the role of the head and found that only the lateral view of the heads of chimpanzees or humans caused the bias (experiment 4). Additional tests also showed that the chimpanzees could not solve the task based only on the direction of the stimuli without motion (experiment 5). These results indicate that the perception of motion in the chimpanzees was affected by the biological features of the stimuli, suggesting their prior knowledge of the "body" from a biological (morphological and kinetic) perspective.