Community-specific evaluation of tool affordances in wild chimpanzees
Thibaud Gruber, Martin N. N. Muller, Vernon Reynolds, Richard W. Wrangham & Klaus Zuberbühler
| Abstract |
The notion of animal culture, defined as socially transmitted
community-specific behaviour patterns, remains controversial,
notably because the definition relies on surface behaviours without
addressing underlying cognitive processes. In contrast, human
cultures are the product of socially acquired ideas that shape how
individuals interact with their environment. We conducted field
experiments with two culturally distinct chimpanzee communities in
Uganda, which revealed significant differences in how individuals
considered the affording parts of an experimentally provided tool
to extract honey from a standardised cavity. Firstly, individuals
of the two communities found different functional parts of the tool
salient, suggesting that they experienced a cultural bias in their
cognition. Secondly, when the alternative function was made more
salient, chimpanzees were unable to learn it, suggesting that prior
cultural background can interfere with new learning. Culture appears
to shape how chimpanzees see the world, suggesting that a cognitive
component underlies the observed behavioural patterns. |
| Citation | Gruber, T., Muller, M. N. N., Reynolds, V., Wrangham, R. W., & Zuberbühler, K. (2011). Community-specific evaluation of tool affordances in wild chimpanzees. Scientific Reports, 1. |
| Type | Journal article (English) |
| Date of appearance | 2011 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 1 |