The popular opinion that subhuman primates possess a high order of imitative ability is supported by a considerable amount of observational data. In summarizing such evidence with regard to chimpanzees, Yerkes and Yerkes say:... we feel entirely safe in asserting, as the consensus of opinion among competent students, that the chimpanzee commonly and with extreme facility imitates acts, in some instances for the mere satisfaction of performing them, and in other cases for the sake of a desired reward or objective (12, p. 347).
Chimpanzees were trained on discrimination problems in which 5, 10, or 20 pairs of stimulus objects were presented in rotation. Accuracy as high as 80 per cent was attained on the third presentation of the 20-pair problems.
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