Socially learned habituation to human observers in wild chimpanzees

Abstract

Habituation to human observers is an essential tool in animal behaviour research. Habituation occurs when repeated and inconsequential exposure to a human observer gradually reduces an animal's natural aversive response. Despite the importance of habituation, little is known about the psychological mechanisms facilitating it in wild animals. Although animal learning theory offers some account, the patterns are more complex in natural than in laboratory settings, especially in large social groups in which individual experiences vary and individuals influence each other. Here, we investigate the role of social learning during the

Culture extends the scope of evolutionary biology in the great apes

“…The growth of boldness in the studies discussed above (43,86) indicates culturally evolved instances of adaptation, although the adaptive payoffs were likely only mild. In the wild there is evidence that a more crucial level of adaptiveness has been delivered.…”

“…Playing with the objects thus could evolve as the norm in the later generations composed of different youngsters than the original shy ones. In a counterpart from the wild, two individuals from a humanhabituated community of wild chimpanzees immigrated into a neighboring community that scientists were beginning to habituate, and at that point habituation accelerated significantly (43).…”

“…An example of the former was tracked by network-based diffusion analysis, confirming that a novel chimpanzee behavior, using moss as a water-sponge, spread from the alpha male along lines of social affiliation, providing quantitative circumstantial evidence for transmission (42). Examples of intercommunity transmission include (i) a significant acceleration in habituation to human observers in a chimpanzee community being newly habituated after two females immigrated from a well-habituated community (43); and (ii) the spread of ant-fishing to a new community after the immigration of a proficient individual from a neighboring community where fishing was habitual (44).…”

Habituation to Auditory Stimuli by Captive African Elephants (Loxodonta africana)

“…Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) gradually habituate to the presence of human observers, as shown by the primates' decreasing distances from the observers over time [Samuni et al, 2014]. However, when previously habituated chimpanzees are present, non-habituated chimpanzees spend more time at a closer distance to the human observers, which suggests that habituation can, at least partially, be socially acquired [Samuni et al, 2014]. The behavior of Rosie may have influenced the acquisition of habituation by Juno to the pots/pans sound (Trial Set 1).…”

Experimental field studies with non-human primates

“…Habituating wild primates to human observers is a lengthy, difficult and often costly process, which can take several years [48]. As a result, primate fieldwork is almost always plagued by small sample size, to the effect that within-subject designs are often the only possibility.…”