Manual dexterity in the gorilla: bimanual and digit role differentiation in a natural task

Byrne, Richard W.; Corp, Nadia; Byrne, Jennifer M.

doi:10.1007/s100710100083

Cited by 106 publications

(128 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…With their opposable thumbs, primates are adept at object manipulation (Beck, 1980), with great apes having the greatest manual dexterity (Byrne, Corp, & Byrne, 2001;Napier, 1962). Tool use is widespread among animals, and is evident in all great apes and several monkey species (Beck, 1980).…”

Section: Tools and Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Elephant cognition in primate perspective

Byrne¹,

Bates²,

Moss

2009

CCBR

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On many of the staple measures of comparative psychology, elephants show no obvious differences from other mammals, such as primates: discrimination learning, memory, spontaneous tool use, etc. However, a range of more naturalistic measures have recently suggested that elephant cognition may be rather different. Wild elephants sub-categorize humans into groups, independently making this classification on the basis of scent or colour. In number discrimination, elephants show no effects of absolute magnitude or relative size disparity in making number judgements. In the social realm, elephants show empathy into the problems faced by others, and give hints of special abilities in cooperation, vocal imitation and perhaps teaching. Field data suggest that the elephant's vaunted reputation for memory may have a factual basis, in two ways. Elephants' ability to remember large-scale space over long periods suggests good cognitive mapping skills. Elephants' skill in keeping track of the current locations of many family members implies that working memory may be unusually developed, consistent with the laboratory finding that their quantity judgements do not show the usual magnitude effects.

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Section: Tools and Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Elephant cognition in primate perspective

Byrne¹,

Bates²,

Moss

2009

CCBR

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“…pulp from tough-shelled, large fruits; and (2) physically defended leaves, where defences had to be circumvented in order to feed painlessly. In both cases, the techniques employed showed considerable manual dexterity (2), and hierarchical organization (1, 3).…”

Section: Acquisition Of Skilled Gathering Techniques In Mahale Chimpamentioning

confidence: 99%

<Review> Acquisition of Skilled Gathering Techniques in Mahale Chimpanzees

Byrne¹,

Corp²

2003

PAN

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Chimpanzees show a remarkable ability to organize actions into complex programs, shown most famously in their ability to employ tools in many different ways for subsistence. Chimpanzee tool use has been much studied, with an emphasis on the tool rather than the process of use. We planned instead to examine chimpanzee skills in the broader context of plant-processing techniques, with an emphasis on the process. In particular, we focused on the development of infants in parallel with describing the skills of their mothers. Data were collected from M group chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains National

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“…Great apes represent a functional model to study the evolution of both handedness and human cognition, not only because of their phylogenetic proximity to humans, but also because they display clear anatomical human-like features, such as the morphology and the manipulative skills of hands [40], the ability to occasionally locomote bipedally [41] and the capacity to exhibit intentionally communicative gestures [e.g. [42][43][44][45][46].…”

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confidence: 99%

Human handedness: An inherited evolutionary trait

Forrester

Quaresmini

Leavens

et al. 2013

Behavioural Brain Research

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Our objective was to demonstrate that human right-handedness, is not species specific, precipitated from language areas in the brain, but rather is context specific and inherited from a behavior common to both humans and great apes. In general, previous methods of assessing human handedness have neglected to consider the context of action or employed methods suitable for direct comparison across species. We employed a bottom-up, context-sensitive method to quantitatively assess manual actions in right-handed, typically developing children during naturalistic behavior. By classifying the target to which participants directed their manual action, as animate (social partner, self) and inanimate (non-living functional objects), we found that children demonstrated a significant right-hand bias for manual actions directed towards inanimate targets, but not for manual actions directed towards animate targets. This pattern was Comparisons of handedness patters support the view that human handedness, and its origin in cerebral lateralization is not a new or human-unique characteristic. Additionally these data are consistent with the theory that human population-level right-handedness is a trait developed through tool use that was inherited from an ancestor common to both humans and great apes.

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Manual dexterity in the gorilla: bimanual and digit role differentiation in a natural task

Cited by 106 publications

References 35 publications

Elephant cognition in primate perspective

Elephant cognition in primate perspective

<Review> Acquisition of Skilled Gathering Techniques in Mahale Chimpanzees

Human handedness: An inherited evolutionary trait

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