A potent effect of observational learning on chimpanzee tool construction

Abstract

Although tool use occurs in diverse species, its complexity may mark an important distinction between humans and other animals. Chimpanzee tool use has many similarities to that seen in humans, yet evidence of the cumulatively complex and constructive technologies common in human populations remains absent in free-ranging chimpanzees. Here we provide the first evidence that chimpanzees have a latent capacity to socially learn to construct a composite tool. Fifty chimpanzees were assigned to one of five demonstration conditions that varied in the amount and type of information available in video footage of a conspecific. Chimpanzees exposed to complete footage of a chimpanzee combining the two components to retrieve a reward learned to combine the tools significantly more than those exposed to more restricted information. In a follow-up test, chimpanzees that constructed tools after watching the complete demonstration tended to do so even when the reward was within reach of the unmodified components, whereas those that spontaneously solved the task (without seeing the modification process) combined only when necessary. Social learning, therefore, had a powerful effect in instilling a marked persistence in the use of a complex technique at the cost of efficiency, inhibiting insightful tool use.

Conformity without majority? The case for demarcating social from majority influences

“…Importantly, Price et al (2009) obtained these results in the scenario where the chimpanzees learned from one conspecific, not from a majority. A similar finding was reported by Whiten (1998): in this study, chimpanzees preferentially used their first-learned action pattern that had been demonstrated to them by one human experimenter, even after discovering that other sequences worked equally well (Whiten, 1998).…”

“…The second issue that pertains directly to our focus of demarcating social from majority influences is related to the finding that chimpanzees who have acquired their behaviour socially have been shown to be relatively rigid in the use thereof, even at the cost of efficiency (Price, Lambeth, Schapiro, & Whiten, 2009). Importantly, Price et al (2009) obtained these results in the scenario where the chimpanzees learned from one conspecific, not from a majority.…”

End state copying by humans (Homo sapiens): Implications for a comparative perspective on cumulative culture.

“…The apparent conservatism exhibited by chimpanzees within studies of social learning may provide an intriguing insight. Chimpanzees appear to show a striking tendency to perseverate with learned responses, often in the face of exposure to, or even experience of, more effective alternatives (Marshall-Pescini & Whiten, 2008;Hrubesch, Preuschoft, & van Schaik, 2009;Price et al, 2009;Hanus, Mendes, Tennie, & Call, 2011;Hopper et al, 2011).…”

“…The remarkable copying by chimpanzees has also been shown to allow introduced behavioral variants to spread through social groups under more naturalistic conditions, creating captive behavioral traditions Whiten et al, 2007). Perhaps even more strikingly, it has also been shown that the power of these social influences is such that chimpanzees will continue to use socially learned behaviors, even when they are redundant (Price, Lambeth, Schapiro, & Whiten, 2009), or when the learned behavior causes them to go against personal preferences (Hopper, Schapiro, Lambeth, & Brosnan, 2011). Consequently, it appears that, whatever the mechanism involved, for these tasks, chimpanzees seem capable of the sort of high fidelity transmission proposed by Tennie et al (2009) to be vital for cumulative culture.…”

The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools?

“…For example, there is an important distinction between manufacture and innovation. When tool makers make a new tool having first seen a suitable example of the tool itself [5,6], or of the tool being used by conspecifics [21,22], they have a template tool-shape to work towards. Assuming that they recognize that the example tool is a suitable tool to solve the task they face (a difficult task in itself, but helped if they have used it themselves or seen others do so), their task is to transform the available materials so that they resemble the example tool.…”