Communication about the Environment in a Group of Young Chimpanzees

Menzel, Jr. E.W.

doi:10.1159/000155381

Cited by 231 publications

(50 citation statements)

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“…Primates can get information about the location of food from overt signals such as food calls (Hauser and Marler 1993), or subtle cues such as the odor of a conspeciWc's breath (Chauvin and Thierry 2005). Menzel's (1971) remarkable experiments indicated that, without any overt calls or gestures, chimpanzees were able to communicate to each other about the presence and quantity of hidden food. In nature, primate groups sometimes travel to more distant, more productive resources, instead of nearer, less productive ones (Cunningham 2003;Cunningham and Janson 2007;Garber 1989;Janson 1996Janson , 2007.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A socioecological perspective on primate cognition, past and present

Cunningham

Janson

2007

Anim Cogn

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The papers in this special issue examine the relationship between social and ecological cognition in primates. We refer to the intersection of these two domains as socioecological cognition. Examples of socioecological cognition include socially learned predator alarm calls and socially sensitive foraging decisions. In this review we consider how primate cognition may have been shaped by the interaction of social and ecological inXuences in their evolutionary history. The ability to remember distant, out-of-sight locations is an ancient one, shared by many mammals and widespread among primates. It seems some monkeys and apes have evolved the ability to form more complex representations of resources, integrating "what-where-how much" information. This ability allowed anthropoids to live in larger, more cohesive groups by minimizing competition for limited resources between group members. As group size increased, however, competition for resources also increased, selecting for enhanced social skills. Enhanced social skills in turn made a more sophisticated relationship to the environment possible. The interaction of social and ecological inXuences created a spiraling eVect in the evolution of primate intelligence. In contrast, lemurs may not have evolved the ability to form complex representations which would allow them to consider the size and location of resources. This lack in lemur ecological cognition may restrict the size of frugivorous lemur social groups, thereby limiting the complexity of lemur social life. In this special issue, we have brought together two review papers, Wve Weld studies, and one laboratory study to investigate the interaction of social and ecological factors in relation to foraging. Our goal is to stimulate research that considers social and ecological factors acting together on cognitive evolution, rather than in isolation. Cross fertilization of experimental and observational studies from captivity and the Weld is important for increasing our understanding of this relationship.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A socioecological perspective on primate cognition, past and present

Cunningham

Janson

2007

Anim Cogn

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“…Chimpanzees readily discriminate and remember the nature and relative positions of objects [Tinklepaugh, 1932;Menzel, 1973;Teleki, 1974] and can communicate some of this information to human beings [Gardner and G ardner, 1969;Premack, 1971] and to each other [Menzel, 1971]. They can match a picture to one of two objects in a non-locomotor laboratory test situation [Davenport and Rogers, 1971] and recognize themselves in a mirror [Gallup, 1970], Some are fond of watching movies or television [Premack, 1976].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Map Reading by Chimpanzees

Menzel¹,

Premack²,

Woodruff³

1978

IJFP

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“…We are still far from decoding most of this. Explicit demonstration of chimpanzee capacities for exchange of environmental information has been limited so far to work at the Delta Regional Primate Research Center reported by Menzel (1971), although field studies of wild chimpanzees may be expected to provide similar data in the near future (cf. Goodall 1968;Izawa and Itani 1966;Kortlandt 1967 and personal communication;Nishida 1970;Sugiyama 1969).…”

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confidence: 99%