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Kopsch NT, Geissmann T. A cooperation experiment with white-handed gibbons (Hylobates lar). Primates 2023; 64:483-492. [PMID: 37222867 PMCID: PMC10473987 DOI: 10.1007/s10329-023-01068-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2022] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
Cooperative behaviors among individuals of numerous species play a crucial role in social interactions. There is a special interest in investigating the occurrence of cooperation among apes because this knowledge could also shed light on evolutionary processes and help us understand the origin and development of cooperation in humans and primates in general. Gibbons are phylogenetically intermediate between the great apes and monkeys, and therefore represent a unique opportunity for comparisons. The aim of the present study was to discover whether or not white-handed gibbons (Hylobates lar) show cooperative behaviors. In order to test for the respective behaviors, the gibbons were presented with a commonly used experimental cooperative rope-pulling task. The gibbons in this study did not exhibit cooperative behaviors during the problem-solving task. However, prior training procedures could not be fully completed, hence this project constitutes only the onset of exploring cooperative behaviors in gibbons. Additional behavioral observations revealed that the gibbons spent significantly more time "out of arm's reach to everyone", suggesting that they are less often involved in social interactions, than other, more cooperative primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nora T Kopsch
- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
- Department of Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
| | - Thomas Geissmann
- Anthropological Department, University Zurich-Irchel, Zurich, Switzerland
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2
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Burkart JM, Adriaense JEC, Brügger RK, Miss FM, Wierucka K, van Schaik CP. A convergent interaction engine: vocal communication among marmoset monkeys. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20210098. [PMID: 35876206 PMCID: PMC9315454 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2021] [Accepted: 01/26/2022] [Indexed: 09/14/2023] Open
Abstract
To understand the primate origins of the human interaction engine, it is worthwhile to focus not only on great apes but also on callitrichid monkeys (marmosets and tamarins). Like humans, but unlike great apes, callitrichids are cooperative breeders, and thus habitually engage in coordinated joint actions, for instance when an infant is handed over from one group member to another. We first explore the hypothesis that these habitual cooperative interactions, the marmoset interactional ethology, are supported by the same key elements as found in the human interaction engine: mutual gaze (during joint action), turn-taking, volubility, as well as group-wide prosociality and trust. Marmosets show clear evidence of these features. We next examine the prediction that, if such an interaction engine can indeed give rise to more flexible communication, callitrichids may also possess elaborate communicative skills. A review of marmoset vocal communication confirms unusual abilities in these small primates: high volubility and large vocal repertoires, vocal learning and babbling in immatures, and voluntary usage and control. We end by discussing how the adoption of cooperative breeding during human evolution may have catalysed language evolution by adding these convergent consequences to the great ape-like cognitive system of our hominin ancestors. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. M. Burkart
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution ISLE, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - J. E. C. Adriaense
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - R. K. Brügger
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - F. M. Miss
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - K. Wierucka
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - C. P. van Schaik
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
- Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution ISLE, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
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3
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Melis AP, Rossano F. When and how do non-human great apes communicate to support cooperation? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20210109. [PMID: 35876197 PMCID: PMC9310173 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0109] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Several scholars have long suggested that human language and remarkable communicative abilities originate from the need and motivation to cooperate and coordinate actions with others. Yet, little work has focused on when and how great apes communicate during joint action tasks, partly because of the widely held assumption that animal communication is mostly manipulative, but also because non-human great apes' default motivation seems to be competitive rather than cooperative. Here, we review experimental cooperative tasks and show how situational challenges and the degree of asymmetry in terms of knowledge relevant for the joint action task affect the likelihood of communication. We highlight how physical proximity and strength of social bond between the participants affect the occurrence and type of communication. Lastly, we highlight how, from a production point of view, communicators appear capable of calibrating their signalling and controlling their delivery, showing clear evidence of first-order intentionality. On the other hand, recipients appear to struggle in terms of making use of referential information received. We discuss different hypotheses accounting for this asymmetry and provide suggestions concerning how future work could help us unveil to what degree the need for cooperation has shaped our closest living relatives' communicative behaviour.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Revisiting the human ‘interaction engine’: comparative approaches to social action coordination’.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alicia P. Melis
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, UK
| | - F. Rossano
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, San Diego CA 92093, USA
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4
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Abstract
Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture.
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Laumer IB, Massen JJM, Boehm PM, Boehm A, Geisler A, Auersperg AMI. Individual Goffin´s cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana) show flexible targeted helping in a tool transfer task. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0253416. [PMID: 34185776 PMCID: PMC8241052 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253416] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2020] [Accepted: 06/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Flexible targeted helping is considered an advanced form of prosocial behavior in hominoids, as it requires the actor to assess different situations that a conspecific may be in, and to subsequently flexibly satisfy different needs of that partner depending on the nature of those situations. So far, apart from humans such behaviour has only been experimentally shown in chimpanzees and in Eurasian jays. Recent studies highlight the prosocial tendencies of several bird species, yet flexible targeted helping remained untested, largely due to methodological issues as such tasks are generally designed around tool-use, and very few bird species are capable of tool-use. Here, we tested Goffin's cockatoos, which proved to be skilled tool innovators in captivity, in a tool transfer task in which an actor had access to four different objects/tools and a partner to one of two different apparatuses that each required one of these tools to retrieve a reward. As expected from this species, we recorded playful object transfers across all conditions. Yet, importantly and similar to apes, three out of eight birds transferred the correct tool more often in the test condition than in a condition that also featured an apparatus but no partner. Furthermore, one of these birds transferred that correct tool first more often before transferring any other object in the test condition than in the no-partner condition, while the other two cockatoos were marginally non-significantly more likely to do so. Additionally, there was no difference in the likelihood of the correct tool being transferred first for either of the two apparatuses, suggesting that these birds flexibly adjusted what to transfer based on their partner´s need. Future studies should focus on explanations for the intra-specific variation of this behaviour, and should test other parrots and other large-brained birds to see how this can be generalized across the class and to investigate the evolutionary history of this trait.
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Affiliation(s)
- I. B. Laumer
- Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - J. J. M. Massen
- Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Animal Behaviour and Cognition, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - P. M. Boehm
- Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - A. Boehm
- Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - A. Geisler
- Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - A. M. I. Auersperg
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria
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Sánchez-Amaro A, Ball R, Rossano F. Gibbon strategies in a food competition task. Sci Rep 2021; 11:9312. [PMID: 33927301 PMCID: PMC8085081 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-88804-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2020] [Accepted: 04/14/2021] [Indexed: 02/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Social primates face conflicts of interest with other partners when their individual and collective interests collide. Despite living in small, primarily bonded, groups compared to other social primates, gibbons are not exempt from these conflicts in their everyday lives. In the current task, we asked whether dyads of gibbons would solve a conflict of interest over food rewards. We presented dyads of gibbons with a situation in which they could decide whether to take an active role and pull a handle to release food rewards at a distance or take a passive role and avoid action. In this situation, the passive partner could take an advantageous position to obtain the rewards over the active partner. Gibbons participated in three conditions: a control condition with no food rewards, a test condition with indirect food rewards and a test condition with direct food rewards. In both test conditions, five rewards were released at a distance from the handle. In addition, the active individual could obtain one extra food reward from the handle in the direct food condition. We found that gibbons acted more often in the two conditions involving food rewards, and waited longer in the indirect compared to the direct food condition, thus suggesting that they understood the task contingencies. Surprisingly, we found that in a majority of dyads, individuals in the active role obtained most of the payoff compared to individuals in the passive role in both food conditions. Furthermore, in some occasions individuals in the active role did not approach the location where the food was released. These results suggest that while gibbons may strategize to maximize benefits in a competitive food task, they often allowed their partners to obtain better rewards. Our results highlight the importance of social tolerance and motivation as drivers promoting cooperation in these species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alejandro Sánchez-Amaro
- grid.266100.30000 0001 2107 4242Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA ,grid.419518.00000 0001 2159 1813Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Robert Ball
- grid.266100.30000 0001 2107 4242Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA ,grid.212340.60000000122985718The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, USA
| | - Federico Rossano
- grid.266100.30000 0001 2107 4242Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA
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7
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McGetrick J, Brucks D, Marshall-Pescini S, Range F. No evidence for a relationship between breed cooperativeness and inequity aversion in dogs. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0233067. [PMID: 32555709 PMCID: PMC7299310 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233067] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2019] [Accepted: 04/27/2020] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Inequity aversion, the resistance to inequitable outcomes, has been demonstrated in a wide variety of animal species. Inequity aversion was hypothesised to have co-evolved with cooperation but only limited evidence supports this. Dogs provide a suitable model species to test this hypothesis as dogs were previously shown to be inequity averse and dog breeds vary in the extent to which they were selected for cooperativeness. Here, we compared the response of 12 individuals of "cooperative worker" breeds with that of 12 individuals of "independent worker" breeds in the "paw task" previously used to demonstrate inequity aversion in dogs. We also compared the two breed groups' subsequent social behaviours in a food tolerance test and free interaction session. Although subjects in both breed groups were inequity averse, we found no considerable difference between the groups in the extent of the negative response to inequity or in the impact of the inequity on subsequent social behaviours. However, we found differences between the breed groups in the response to reward omission with cooperative breeds tending to work for longer than independent breeds. Additionally, in the free interaction session, individuals of cooperative breeds spent more time in proximity to their partner in the baseline condition than individuals of independent breeds. Overall, our results do not provide support for the hypothesis that inequity aversion and cooperation co-evolved. However, they illuminate potential differences in selection pressures experienced by cooperative worker and independent worker dog breeds throughout their evolutionary history.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jim McGetrick
- Domestication Lab, Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria
- Comparative Cognition Unit, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Medical University of Vienna & University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Désirée Brucks
- Comparative Cognition Unit, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Medical University of Vienna & University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Institute for Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Sarah Marshall-Pescini
- Domestication Lab, Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria
- Comparative Cognition Unit, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Medical University of Vienna & University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Friederike Range
- Domestication Lab, Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria
- Comparative Cognition Unit, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Medical University of Vienna & University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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8
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Duguid S, Melis AP. How animals collaborate: Underlying proximate mechanisms. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2020; 11:e1529. [PMID: 32342659 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1529] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2019] [Revised: 04/01/2020] [Accepted: 04/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Collaboration or social interactions in which two or more individuals coordinate their behavior to produce outcomes from which both individuals benefit are common in nature. Individuals from many species hunt together, defend their territory, and form coalitions in intragroup competition. However, we still know very little about the proximate mechanisms underlying these behaviors. Recent theories of human cognitive evolution have emphasized the role collaboration may have played in the selection of socio-cognitive skills. It has been argued that the capacity to form shared goals and joint intentions with others, is what allows humans to collaborate so flexibly and efficiently. Although there is no evidence that nonhuman animals are capable of shared intentionality, there is conceivably a wide range of proximate mechanisms that support forms of, potentially flexible, collaboration in other species. We review the experimental literature with the aim of evaluating what we know about how other species achieve collaboration; with a particular focus on chimpanzees. We structure the review with a new categorization of collaborative behavior that focuses on whether individuals intentionally coordinate actions with others. We conclude that for a wider comparative perspective we need more data from other species but the findings so far suggest that chimpanzees, and possibly other great apes, are capable of understanding the causal role of a partner in collaboration. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Psychology > Comparative Psychology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shona Duguid
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
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9
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Gorillas' (Gorilla g. gorilla) knowledge of conspecifics' affordances: intraspecific social tool use for food acquisition. Primates 2020; 61:583-591. [PMID: 32166437 PMCID: PMC7347707 DOI: 10.1007/s10329-020-00805-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2019] [Accepted: 02/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
The use of tools, long thought to be uniquely human, has now been observed in other animal taxa including several species of birds, non-primate mammals as well as some non-human primate species. Chimpanzees, one of humankind’s closest living relatives, exceed all other non-human animal species as they have been reported to use an exceptionally large toolkit. However, relatively little is known about the tool-use skills of the other great ape species. While the majority of tools described are inanimate objects, the use of social tools has received relatively little attention. Here we provide the first evidence of naturally occurring spontaneous exploitative behaviour of a conspecific as a social tool for food acquisition in non-human animals. We observed gorillas in captivity utilising a conspecific as a ladder to gain access to unreachable food. We discuss our findings in the light of other studies on social tool use and suggest the need for more nuanced interpretations of gorillas’ cognitive skills.
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Boulinguez‐Ambroise G, Zablocki‐Thomas P, Aujard F, Herrel A, Pouydebat E. Ontogeny of food grasping in mouse lemurs: behavior, morphology and performance. J Zool (1987) 2019. [DOI: 10.1111/jzo.12652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - F. Aujard
- UMR 7179‐ CNRS, National Museum of Natural History Paris France
| | - A. Herrel
- UMR 7179‐ CNRS, National Museum of Natural History Paris France
| | - E. Pouydebat
- UMR 7179‐ CNRS, National Museum of Natural History Paris France
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11
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Grueneisen S, Duguid S, Saur H, Tomasello M. Children, chimpanzees, and bonobos adjust the visibility of their actions for cooperators and competitors. Sci Rep 2017; 7:8504. [PMID: 28819263 PMCID: PMC5561202 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-08435-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2017] [Accepted: 07/12/2017] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Chimpanzees and bonobos are highly capable of tracking other's mental states. It has been proposed, however, that in contrast to humans, chimpanzees are only able to do this in competitive interactions but this has rarely been directly tested. Here, pairs of chimpanzees or bonobos (Study 1) and 4-year-old children (Study 2) were presented with two almost identical tasks differing only regarding the social context. In the cooperation condition, players' interests were matched: they had to make corresponding choices to be mutually rewarded. To facilitate coordination, subjects should thus make their actions visible to their partner whose view was partially occluded. In the competition condition, players' interests were directly opposed: the partner tried to match the subject's choice but subjects were only rewarded if they chose differently, so that they benefited from hiding their actions. The apes successfully adapted their decisions to the social context and their performance was markedly better in the cooperation condition. Children also distinguished between the two contexts, but somewhat surprisingly, performed better in the competitive condition. These findings demonstrate experimentally that chimpanzees and bonobos can take into account what others can see in cooperative interactions. Their social-cognitive skills are thus more flexible than previously assumed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Shona Duguid
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Heiko Saur
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Michael Tomasello
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
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12
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Völter CJ, Rossano F, Call J. Social manipulation in nonhuman primates: Cognitive and motivational determinants. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2016; 82:76-94. [PMID: 27639446 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.09.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2016] [Revised: 09/09/2016] [Accepted: 09/13/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Social interactions are the result of individuals' cooperative and competitive tendencies expressed over an extended period of time. Although social manipulation, i.e., using another individual to achieve one's own goals, is a crucial aspect of social interactions, there has been no comprehensive attempt to differentiate its various types and to map its cognitive and motivational determinants. For this purpose, we survey in this article the experimental literature on social interactions in nonhuman primates. We take social manipulation, illustrated by a case study with orangutans (Pongo abelii), as our starting point and move in two directions. First, we will focus on a flexibility/sociality axis that includes technical problem solving, social tool-use and communication. Second, we will focus on a motivational/prosociality axis that includes exploitation, cooperation, and helping. Combined, the two axes offer a way to capture a broad range of social interactions performed by human and nonhuman primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- C J Völter
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK; Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - F Rossano
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, USA
| | - J Call
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK; Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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13
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Affiliation(s)
- J. M. Burkart
- Anthropological Institute and Museum; University of Zurich; Zurich Switzerland
| | - C. P. van Schaik
- Anthropological Institute and Museum; University of Zurich; Zurich Switzerland
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15
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Leavens DA, Reamer LA, Mareno MC, Russell JL, Wilson D, Schapiro SJ, Hopkins WD. Distal Communication by Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Evidence for Common Ground? Child Dev 2015; 86:1623-38. [PMID: 26292996 PMCID: PMC4697278 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12404] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
van der Goot et al. (2014) proposed that distal, deictic communication indexed the appreciation of the psychological state of a common ground between a signaler and a receiver. In their study, great apes did not signal distally, which they construed as evidence for the human uniqueness of a sense of common ground. This study exposed 166 chimpanzees to food and an experimenter, at an angular displacement, to ask, "Do chimpanzees display distal communication?" Apes were categorized as (a) proximal or (b) distal signalers on each of four trials. The number of chimpanzees who communicated proximally did not statistically differ from the number who signaled distally. Therefore, contrary to the claim by van der Goot et al., apes do communicate distally.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lisa A Reamer
- Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research
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16
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Jelbert SA, Singh PJ, Gray RD, Taylor AH. New Caledonian crows rapidly solve a collaborative problem without cooperative cognition. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0133253. [PMID: 26266937 PMCID: PMC4534463 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2014] [Accepted: 06/25/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
There is growing comparative evidence that the cognitive bases of cooperation are not unique to humans. However, the selective pressures that lead to the evolution of these mechanisms remain unclear. Here we show that while tool-making New Caledonian crows can produce collaborative behavior, they do not understand the causality of cooperation nor show sensitivity to inequity. Instead, the collaborative behavior produced appears to have been underpinned by the transfer of prior experience. These results suggest that a number of possible selective pressures, including tool manufacture and mobbing behaviours, have not led to the evolution of cooperative cognition in this species. They show that causal cognition can evolve in a domain specific manner–understanding the properties and flexible uses of physical tools does not necessarily enable animals to grasp that a conspecific can be used as a social tool.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah A. Jelbert
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
- * E-mail:
| | - Puja J. Singh
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
| | - Russell D. Gray
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Alex H. Taylor
- School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
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