Chimpanzees spontaneously take turns in a shared serial ordering task

Martin, Christopher F.; Biro, Dora; Matsuzawa, Tetsuro

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-14393-x

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(50 reference statements)

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“…We would classify this as gorillas choosing to “time-share” the device rather than serial monopolization, because apart from one instance of aggression on the first trial (Touni directed to Afia), there were no indications of gorillas competing with each other for access. Similarly, a recent cognitive study on chimpanzees found that individuals in mother-offspring dyads spontaneously took turns to work at a computerized task on one screen (Martin et al, 2017). In fact, the ability of gorillas to efficiently take turns on our device indicates that at least some of the females were keeping track of each other and/or the device over the course of a trial.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

High-Tech and Tactile: Cognitive Enrichment for Zoo-Housed Gorillas

et al. 2019

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The field of environmental enrichment for zoo animals, particularly great apes, has been revived by technological advancements such as touchscreen interfaces and motion sensors. However, direct animal-computer interaction (ACI) is impractical or undesirable for many zoos. We developed a modular cuboid puzzle maze for the troop of six Western lowland gorillas ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla ) at Bristol Zoo Gardens, United Kingdom. The gorillas could use their fingers or tools to interact with interconnected modules and remove food rewards. Twelve modules could be interchanged within the frame to create novel iterations with every trial. We took a screen-free approach to enrichment: substituting ACI for tactile, physically complex device components, in addition to hidden automatic sensors, and cameras to log device use. The current study evaluated the gorillas’ behavioral responses to the device, and evaluated it as a form of “cognitive enrichment.” Five out of six gorillas used the device, during monthly trials of 1 h duration, over a 6 month period. All users were female including two infants, and there were significant individual differences in duration of device use. The successful extraction of food rewards was only performed by the three tool-using gorillas. Device use did not diminish over time, and gorillas took turns to use the device alone or as one mother-infant dyad. Our results suggest that the device was a form of cognitive enrichment for the study troop because it allowed gorillas to solve novel challenges, and device use was not associated with behavioral indicators of stress or frustration. However, device exposure had no significant effects on gorilla activity budgets. The device has the potential to be a sustainable enrichment method in the long-term, tailored to individual gorilla skill levels and motivations. Our study represents a technological advancement for gorilla enrichment, an area which had been particularly overlooked until now. We wholly encourage the continued development of this physical maze system for other great apes under human care, with or without computer logging technology.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

High-Tech and Tactile: Cognitive Enrichment for Zoo-Housed Gorillas

et al. 2019

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“…Food sharing behavior is not equally prevalent among primate species: and has been described for humans, apes, some baboon species 61 , and some New World monkey species including capuchins share food even between adults, while rhesus macaques do not even share food with their offspring 62 . In line with these patterns, mutually beneficial alternating task performance and turn-taking has been observed in humans 23 , apes [63][64][65] , and capuchins 66 , but not in more despotic, less tolerant rhesus macaques 5 .…”

Section: Action Visibility and Dynamic Coordinationmentioning

confidence: 73%

Human and macaque pairs employ different coordination strategies in a transparent decision game

Moeller

Unakafov

Fischer

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Interactions of group-living primates with conspecifics range from cooperation to competition.Game theory allows testing the strategies that underlie such interactions, but in classical theory, agents act simultaneously or sequentially. Many real-world decisions, however, are made while directly observing partner's actions. To investigate social decision-making under conditions of face-to-face action visibility, we developed a setup where two agents observe each other and reach to targets on a shared transparent display, enabling naturalistic interactions we call "transparent games". Here we compared human and macaque pairs in the transparent version of the coordination game "Bach or Stravinsky", which rewards coordination but entails the conflict about which of the two individually-preferred coordinated options to choose. Most human pairs developed coordinated behavior, and 53% adopted dynamic coordination via turntaking to equalize the payoffs. All macaque pairs also converged on coordination, but in a simpler, static way: persistently selecting one of the two coordinated options or one of the two display sides. Two animals that underwent training with a turn-taking human confederate learned to coordinate dynamically. When tested as a pair, they mostly converged on the faster monkey's preferred option, and a dynamic coordination emerged as animals spontaneously took turns in leading to their respective preferred option and following to the other's. The observed choices were captured by modeling a probability to see the other's action before own movement. Importantly, such competitive turn-taking was unlike the benevolent turn-taking in humans, who equally often initiated switches to and from their preferred option. Our findings demonstrate that dynamic coordination is not restricted to humansalthough it serves a selfish motivation in macaquesand emphasize the importance of action visibility in the emergence and maintenance of coordination.

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“…At the same time, as our study shows, communicative behavior is more likely to occur in a situation of imperfect coordination or when coordination breaks down. This might explain, why it has not been observed in previous studies where coordination was uninterrupted and could be perfectly achieved through perception and action (for example, in a study by Martin et al 51 ).…”

Section: Sign Of Differencementioning

confidence: 79%

“…First, our task required continuous turn-taking interaction rather than a one-shot decision or a series of decisions where an individual has time for deliberation. Previous research has demonstrated that chimpanzees spontaneously take turns to coordinate in a task previously learnt individually and adapt their actions to their partner's rhythm 51 . Similarly, turn-taking and role alternation is a common rule for young children's games with adults and peers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Chimpanzee Coordination and Potential Communication in a Two-touchscreen Turn-taking Game

Voinov¹,

Call

Knoblich³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Recent years have seen a growing interest in the question of whether and how groups of nonhumanprimates coordinate their behaviors for mutual benefit. On the one hand, it has been shown that chimpanzees in the wild and in captivity can solve various coordination problems. on the other hand, evidence of communication in the context of coordination problems is scarce. Here, we investigated how pairs of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) solved a problem of dynamically coordinating their actions for achieving a joint goal. We presented five pairs of chimpanzees with a turn-taking coordination game, where the task was to send a virtual target from one computer display to another using two touch-screens. During the joint practice of the game some subjects exhibited spontaneous gesturing. to address the question whether these gestures were produced to sustain coordination, we introduced a joint test condition in which we simulated a coordination break-down scenario: subjects appeared either unwilling or unable to return the target to their partner. The frequency of gesturing was significantly higher in these test trials than in the regular trials. our results suggest that at least in some contexts chimpanzees can exhibit communicative behaviors to sustain coordination in joint action.Joint coordinated action constitutes a prominent and distinctive aspect of social cognition. The ability to coordinate joint actions through communicative means has been available to human groups and, hypothetically, was available to its immediate ancestors from Homo genus 1-3 . By coordinating their actions individuals can achieve things they would never be able to achieve alone. In this way joint actions are a major building block of human culture 4 . Therefore, it is a crucial question which precursors of joint action coordination are already present in other species and which joint action skills (if any) are only present in humans. In the present study we investigated the joint action coordination abilities and their social-cognitive underpinnings in one of our closest phylogenetic relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).Chimpanzees in their natural habitats constantly face coordination and cooperation problems, such as hunting together 5-9 , teaming up with others during conflicts 10,11 or simply traveling together 12,13 . Several experimental studies in captivity have demonstrated that chimpanzees can solve various coordination problems 14-20 . Common to these experimental studies is the finding that chimpanzees either don't use communication to coordinate 18,21 , or that communication for coordination is rare 14,15 . Although recently Melis & Tomasello 22 reported that pairs of chimpanzees established a successful coordination by communication, they did not observe any gestures between partners. Instead, information about the tool location was primarily transferred by the informed individual approaching the target box. Thus, it is unclear whether chimpanzees were communicating or whether the uninformed partner used the position of her p...

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Chimpanzees spontaneously take turns in a shared serial ordering task

Cited by 13 publications

References 56 publications

High-Tech and Tactile: Cognitive Enrichment for Zoo-Housed Gorillas

High-Tech and Tactile: Cognitive Enrichment for Zoo-Housed Gorillas

Human and macaque pairs employ different coordination strategies in a transparent decision game

Chimpanzee Coordination and Potential Communication in a Two-touchscreen Turn-taking Game

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