Community-specific evaluation of tool affordances in wild chimpanzees.

Scientific Reports
Thibaud GruberKlaus 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.

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Citations

Jan 10, 2013·PloS One·Elisabetta Palagi, Giada Cordoni
Mar 2, 2016·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Michael Muthukrishna, Joseph Henrich
Oct 21, 2015·Communicative & Integrative Biology·Thibaud GruberCatherine Hobaiter
Feb 26, 2013·Developmental Science·Emma G FlynnJeremy R Kendal
Sep 17, 2013·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Lewis G DeanRachel L Kendal
Apr 4, 2016·Primates; Journal of Primatology·Steven MugishaCatherine Hobaiter
May 29, 2013·Communicative & Integrative Biology·Thibaud Gruber
Jul 27, 2014·Current Opinion in Neurobiology·Klaus Zuberbühler
Nov 13, 2012·Current Biology : CB·Thibaud GruberCarel van Schaik
Feb 24, 2015·Frontiers in Psychology·Thibaud GruberCarel van Schaik
Jul 20, 2016·ELife·Thibaud GruberChristof Neumann
Jan 5, 2017·Annual Review of Psychology·Andrew Whiten
Jan 10, 2017·The Spanish Journal of Psychology·Andrew Whiten
Feb 13, 2015·Animal Cognition·Franziska Huebner, Claudia Fichtel
Oct 4, 2018·American Journal of Primatology·Alejandra Pascual-Garrido
Apr 21, 2020·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Elisa Bandini, Rachel A Harrison
Nov 20, 2019·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·François Osiurak, Emanuelle Reynaud
Jul 29, 2016·The Behavioral and Brain Sciences·Judith M BurkartCarel P van Schaik
Dec 5, 2019·Scientific Reports·Thibaud GruberDora Biro
Jul 30, 2020·Scientific Reports·Katarzyna BobrowiczMathias Osvath
Oct 12, 2018·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Noemie LamonThibaud Gruber
Sep 19, 2018·Scientific Reports·Matthew GoodmanGavin R Hunt
Oct 30, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·María J Cabrera-Álvarez, Nicola S Clayton
Oct 24, 2020·Biology & Philosophy·Claudio TennieLydia M Hopper
Oct 8, 2021·Scientific Reports·Bradley WalkerNicolas Fay
Dec 31, 2016·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·Andrew Whiten, Erica van de Waal

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