Captive great apes tend to innovate simple tool behaviors quickly

Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the important role that individual learning mechanisms and different forms of enhancenment play in the acquisition of novel behaviors by naïve individuals. A considerable subset of these studies has focused on tool innovation by our closest living relatives, the great apes, to better undestand the evolution of technology in our own lineage. To be able to isolate the role that individual learning plays in great ape tool innovation, researchers usually employ what are known as baseline tests. Although these baselines are commonly used in behavioral studies in captivity, the length of these tests in terms of number of trials and duration remains unstandarized across studies. To address this methodological issue, we conducted a literature review of great ape tool innovation studies conducted in zoological institutions and compiled various methodological data including the timing of innovation. Our literature review revealed an early innovation tendency in great apes, which was particularly pronounced when simple forms of tool use were investigated. In the majority of experiments where tool innovation took place, this occurred within the first trial and/or the first hour of testing. We discuss different possible sources of variation in the latency to innovate such as testing setup, species and task. We hope that our literature review helps researchers design more data-informed, resource-efficient experiments on tool innovation in our closest living relatives.

Tool mastering today – an interdisciplinary perspective

“…Moreover, it is still under discussion whether non-human primates have enduring functional object representations (i.e., tools represented as being for specific purposes), as humans have (Vaesen, 2012;Ruiz and Santos, 2013). Although great apes show relatively high degrees of innovation and flexibility in their tool use (Manrique et al, 2013;Motes-Rodrigo and Tennie, 2022), they may get inflexibly fixated on familiar tool functions, resulting in a decrease in problem-solving performance when required to apply a new function to a given tool (Gruber, 2016;Ebel et al, 2021). Whether this fixedness is based on functional representations or sensorimotor processes (and then it would rather fall under means-end knowledge, see next section) need to be examined more closely as well as the interaction of both processes (flexibility and fixation), also considering similar phenomena in human children's tool use (German and Defeyter, 2000;Defeyter and German, 2003).…”

Primatology in zoos: Studying behavior, cognition, and welfare

“…This over‐representation of apes reflects patterns identified in previous reviews of zoo‐based primate research (Cronin et al, 2017; Hopper, 2017; Lewis & Krupenye, 2022; Melfi, 2005, 2007; Stoinski et al, 1998), but does not reflect the population of primates living in zoos: only 15% of the primates housed in North American AZA‐accredited zoos are great apes ( Gorilla, Pan , and Pongo ) (Species360, 2021). Accordingly, for this special issue I wanted to invite contributions from researchers studying zoo‐housed monkeys and prosimians (e.g., Cairo‐Evans et al, 2022; Hayden et al, 2022; Spiezio et al, 2022) in addition to those studying apes (e.g., Laméris et al, 2022; Martin & Shumaker, 2022; Motes‐Rodrigo & Tennie, 2022; Vonk, 2022; Yamanashi et al, 2022).…”

“…Accordingly, the contributed articles in this special issue also reflect the growing use of technology to help us monitor, evaluate, and enhance primate welfare (e.g., Cairo‐Evans et al, 2022; Hayden et al, 2022; Laméris et al, 2022; Vonk, 2022; Yamanashi et al, 2022). Moreover, technological advances also offer refinements to the ways in which we can study primate behavior and cognition in zoos, via the use of touchscreens (Martin & Shumaker, 2022), eye‐tracking devices (Lewis & Krupenye, 2022), and automated behavioral monitoring systems (Hayden et al, 2022), although “physical” tasks also continue to be used to test zoo primate cognition (Motes‐Rodrigo & Tennie, 2022; Spiezio et al, 2022), as reviewed in McEwen et al ( 2022). These technological approaches offer more nuanced perspectives about the experiences of primates while also allowing for more flexible testing procedures that promote primate welfare (Hopper et al, 2021; Lewis & Krupenye, 2022; Ross et al in press).…”

“…for this special issue I wanted to invite contributions from researchers studying zoo-housed monkeys and prosimians (e.g., Cairo-Evans et al, 2022;Hayden et al, 2022;Spiezio et al, 2022) in addition to those studying apes (e.g., Laméris et al, 2022;Martin & Shumaker, 2022;Motes-Rodrigo & Tennie, 2022;Vonk, 2022;Yamanashi et al, 2022).…”

Cognitive enrichment in a social setting: assessing the use of a novel food maze in sanctuary-housed chimpanzees

“…This could explain why chimpanzees, for example, reportedly engage in problem-solving activities even when no reward is involved (Clark and Smith 2013 ). Furthermore, great apes often explore novel objects (Paquette and Prescott 1988 ), possess highly developed manipulative skills (Paquette and Prescott 1988 ; Torigoe 1985 ), and use and create tools in captive environments (Motes-Rodrigo and Tennie 2021 ). Therefore, the introduction of novel devices or tasks promoting such behaviors may be a particularly successful enrichment strategy for these species.…”