Acquisition of joint attention by olive baboons gesturing toward humans

Animal Cognition - Joint attention is a core ability of human social cognition which broadly refers to the coordination of attention with both the presence and activity of social partners. In both...     

Are monkeys able to plan for future exchange?

Whether or not non-human animals can plan for the future is a hotly debated issue. We investigate this question further and use a planning-to-exchange task to study future planning in the cooperative domain in two species of monkeys: the brown capuchin (Cebus apella) and the Tonkean macaque (Macaca tonkeana). The rationale required subjects to plan for a future opportunity to exchange tokens for food by collecting tokens several minutes in advance. Subjects who successfully planned for the exchange task were expected to select suitable tokens during a collection period (5/10?min), save them for a fixed period of time (20/30?min), then take them into an adjacent compartment and exchange them for food with an experimenter. Monkeys mostly failed to transport tokens when entering the testing compartment; hence, they do not seem able to plan for a future exchange with a human partner. Three subjects did however manage to solve the task several times, albeit at very low rates. They brought the correct version of three possible token types, but rarely transported more than one suitable token at a time. Given that the frequency of token manipulation predicted transport, success might have occurred by chance. This was not the case, however, since in most cases subjects were not already holding the token in their hands before they entered the testing compartment. Instead, these results may reflect subjects' strengths and weaknesses in their time-related comprehension of the task.     

Manipulating social cues in baboon gesture learning: what does it tell us about the evolution of communication?

Animal Cognition - Reading the attentional state of an audience is crucial for effective intentional communication. This study investigates how individual learning experience affects subsequent...     

Gestural communication in olive baboons (Papio anubis): repertoire and intentionality

Animal Cognition - Gesturing is a widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom, as well as an important facet of human language. As such, studying the communicative gestures of our close...     

Bonobos and orangutans,but not chimpanzees,flexibly plan for the future in a token-exchange task

Non-human animals, including great apes, have been suggested to share some of the skills for planning that humans commonly exhibit. A crucial difference between human and non-human planning may relate to the diversity of domains and needs in which this skill is expressed. Although great apes can save tools for future use, there is little evidence yet that they can also do so in other contexts. To investigate this question further, we presented the apes with a planning token-exchange task that differed from standard tool-use tasks. Additionally, we manipulated the future outcome of the task to investigate planning flexibility. In the Exchange condition, subjects had to collect, save and transport tokens because they would need them 30 min later to exchange them for food with a human, i.e., “bring-back” response. In the Release condition, the collection and transport of tokens were not needed as no exchange took place after 30 min. Out of 13 subjects, eight solved the task at least once in the Exchange condition, with chimpanzees appearing less successful than the other species. Importantly, three individuals showed a clear differential response between conditions by producing more “bring-back” responses in the Exchange than in the Release conditions. Those bonobo and orangutan individuals hence adapted their planning behavior according to changing needs (i.e., they brought tokens back significantly more often when they would need them). Bonobos and orangutans, unlike chimpanzees, planned outside the context of tool-use, thus challenging the idea that planning in these species is purely domain-specific.