The Effects of the Environment on the Drawings of an Extraordinarily Productive Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) Artist

Abstract

We report on the case of an extraordinary orangutan who spontaneously produced over a thousand drawings in 5 years. This female orangutan, Molly, started drawing when she was estimated to be 50 years old. Although it has been established that great apes spontaneously draw without training, she produced an enormous number of paintings in her old age, and the numbers of lines and colors in her drawings varied from day to day. As her drawings seemed to be affected by her surroundings, we attempted to analyze quantitatively relationships between her drawings and potentially influential factors during a specific period in which no ostensibly major events were observed. According to our results, her drawings were affected by the identity of her keeper, implying that her drawing behavior may have been affected by environmental factors. Thus, drawings may serve as windows to the internal states of non-human primates.

I Wanna Draw Like You: Inter- and Intra-Individual Differences in Orang-utan Drawings

“…Previous studies on captive orang-utans and other primates showed that they will continue to draw even in the absence of rewards [11][12][13][14]. These findings are consistent with the Gestalt principle found in young children, which links the scribbling activity to a discovery of motor play activity [15].…”

“…These findings are consistent with the Gestalt principle found in young children, which links the scribbling activity to a discovery of motor play activity [15]. Like in humans, spontaneous drawings indicate an intrinsic interest in exploratory and manipulative play for captive non-human primates [11,15]. Moreover, when tracks have already been drawn on the paper, further scribblings are added, suggesting that visible tracks have some kind of reinforcing value [13].…”

“…She had the opportunity to draw regularly from her 54th birthday onwards (in 2006, at Tama Zoo). Moreover, the colours and page filling in Molly's drawings might be affected by aspects of her daily life such as the identity of her caretaker and events in her environment [11]. This leads us to a second question: Is there any temporal evolution (due to environmental changes and/or Molly's own development) in her drawing behaviour?…”

New indices to characterize drawing behavior in humans (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

“…In the first experimental study on drawing in chimpanzees, Schiller 26 presented geometric figures to a female chimpanzee named Alpha who changed her scribbling patterns according to the stimuli provided. A number of studies have shown that chimpanzees maintain their graphic activity without any reinforcement, indicating a likely interest in drawing [25][26][27] . Beyond the sensation linked to locomotor movement, visual feedback seems to play a reinforcement role: drawing behavior decreases when the line drawn by the subject on the tactile screen disappears 28 .…”

“…On one hand, we could expect drawing to be random in chimpanzees (i.e. no internal representativeness) since no chimpanzee has ever produced a representative drawing-with a human eye-despite a demonstrated interest in the activity in several studies [25][26][27] . On the other hand, as chimpanzees are able to change their scribbling outlines and to manifest a preference for colors used or patterns drawn, their drawings might be not so random.…”