The effects of tradition on problem solving by two wild populations of bearded capuchin monkeys in a probing task

Abstract

ResearchCite this article: Cardoso RM, Ottoni EB. 2016 The effects of tradition on problem solving by two wild populations of bearded capuchin monkeys in a probing task. Biol. Lett The effects of culture on individual cognition have become a core issue among cultural primatologists. Field studies with wild populations provide evidence on the role of social cues in the ontogeny of tool use in non-human primates, and on the transmission of such behaviours over generations through socially biased learning. Recent experimental studies have shown that cultural knowledge may influence problem solving in wild populations of chimpanzees. Here, we present the results from a field experiment comparing the performance of bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) from two wild savannah populations with distinct toolkits in a probing task. Only the population that already exhibited the customary use of probing tools succeeded in solving the new problem, suggesting that their cultural repertoire shaped their approach to the new task. Moreover, only this population, which uses stone tools in a broader range of contexts, tried to use them to solve the problem. Social interactions can affect the formation of learning sets and they affect the performance of the monkeys in problem solving. We suggest that behavioural traditions affect the ways non-human primates solve novel foraging problems using tools.

Habitual tool use innovated by free-living New Zealand kea

“…The Sonso population of chimpanzees in Uganda that use leaf tools but not stick tools failed to use sticks to extract honey in prepared holes 50 , 51 . In a similar experiment, the Pedra Furada group of bearded capuchin monkeys ( Sapajus libidinosus ) in Brazil who use stone tools but not stick tools also failed to use sticks to extract honey from holes 52 . When the degree of facilitation was increased by leaving sticks in the holes for individuals to pull out and use as tools, individuals from both populations still failed to use the sticks as tools 51 , 52 .…”

The technical reasoning hypothesis does not rule out the potential key roles of imitation and working memory for CTC

“…In field experiments with wild chimpanzees in Uganda, stick-savvy Kanyawara chimpanzees did not evaluate sticks as opaquely as the stick-less Sonso chimpanzees (Gruber et al 2009;. Even more surprisingly, in the same experiment, male bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) do not evaluate sticks with the same opacity as females (Cardoso & Ottoni 2016). Hence, there is evidence of variation in cognitive opacity between individuals across and within nonhuman species.…”

Peer Review #2 of "Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) display limited behavioural flexibility when faced with a changing foraging task requiring tool use (v0.2)"

“…Manuscript to be reviewed (Gruber et al 2011;Gruber 2016). Similarly, Cardoso and Ottoni (2016) found that providing two communities of wild bearded capuchin monkeys with a dipping task resulted in only the group that already habitually used probing tools solving the task, again despite efforts to scaffold the non-probe-using group towards this behaviour. Chimpanzees may also continue to perform behaviours when these behaviours are no longer necessary, for example, continuing to avoid a non-functional trap in the inverted trap-tube problem (Povinelli 2000; though see also Mulcahy & Call 2006), although it should be noted that in paradigms in which continuing this behaviour is equally rewarding as ceasing to avoid the trap, adult humans also continue to avoid nonfunctional traps (Silva, Page & Silva 2005).…”

“…Learning through exposure to the artefacts of others' tool use is hypothesised to aid in the development of tool behaviour in wild populations (Tennie et al 2009); however, previous experimental studies of chimpanzees (Gruber et al 2011) and capuchin monkeys (Cardoso & Ottoni 2016) have not shown that providing scaffolding intended to approximate these artefacts (tool materials already inserted into a task, for example) leads to the acquisition of novel tool behaviours. By providing chimpanzees with limited exposure to scaffolding towards a novel tool technique in the final phase of our study, we examined whether chimpanzees could acquire novel tool behaviour through exposure to favourable affordances in the form of an effective tool material correctly inserted into the task, as might occur in the wild where proficient tool-users leave tools in place that novices may discover.…”

“…Although we are cautious in our interpretation of our results regarding scaffolding, given that only four individuals had very limited interaction with the scaffolding, more extensive efforts to provide this kind of information in experimental settings have often proven unsuccessful in encouraging the invention of novel behaviours. Wild bearded capuchin monkeys from a population that does not habitually use probing tools, when presented with a dipping task with stick probes already inserted, never acquired probing behaviour (Cardoso & Ottoni 2016).…”