Sensory capacities of the chimpanzee: A review.

Am, Prestrude

doi:10.1037/h0029404

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 79 publications

(87 reference statements)

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“…The data indicate substantial similarities between ape and man. (For reviews, see Nissen, 1946;Prestrude, 1970;Riesen, 1970. ) The limits of sensitivity to light are about the same in chimpanzee and man, and in most regions within the visible spectrum the ape discriminates between different wavelengths as accurately as we do.…”

Section: Sensory Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental models and mental modes: Representational processes in the great apes and man.

Mason

1976

American Psychologist

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Psychologists are interested principally in those behaviors that imply some type of functional image or representation of the environment. When we impose our own categories of experience on "the great apes we find solid evidence of correspondence between their construction of reality and our own. Their sensory capacities are similar, and they spontaneously classify their experiences with objects in ways that resemble those of man. These analytic dispositions are complemented by the ability to synthesize heterogeneous attributes as different properties of the same "object." It is clear that the umwelten of ape and man are similar in many respects. Although it is true that the contrast between ape and man seems greatest in the ability for creative reconstruction of experienceto display foresight, to imagine, to plan ahead-even here the differences may be more in degree than in kind.Evolutionists will agree that what really counts, in the long run, is not how a creature experiences the world-its perceptions, thoughts, and feelings-but how it behaves. Nature is a ruthless pragmatist and does not care a fig for elaborate plans or refined sensibilities that do not materialize in some useful act. In the evolutionary game, it is performance that wins the day. On this issue at least, the behaviorist and the classical ethologist join hands, for both assume-and rightly-that for the vast majority of animals, behavior is the primary means of coping with the environment.Is there any need, then, to consider representational processes in the great apes or, for that matter, in any other animal? The question is not This article is based on a paper presented at the Wenner-Gren Conference on the Great Apes in Burg Wartenstein. This earlier version of the manuscript will be published as part of the conference proceedings. I would like to thank the participants and the following friends for their helpful comments and suggestions:

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Section: Sensory Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental models and mental modes: Representational processes in the great apes and man.

Mason

1976

American Psychologist

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“…Every known human culture has some form of musical expression (Nettl, 1983), and although nonhuman primates do not produce music, they have similar auditory structures, perception, and behavioral responses (Arcadi, Robert, & Boesch, 1998; Boesch & Boesch-Acherman, 2000; Prestrude, 1970; Snowdon & Teie, 2010). Humans report that music has a significant effect on social arousal and mood (Balch & Lewis, 1996; Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001), and, similarly, chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) show an increase in social behavior and a decrease in agonism when music is played (Howell, Schwandt, Fritz, Roeder, & Nelson, 2003).…”

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confidence: 99%

Chimpanzees prefer African and Indian music over silence.

Mingle¹,

Eppley²,

Campbell³

et al. 2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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All primates have an ability to distinguish between temporal and melodic features of music, but unlike humans, in previous studies, nonhuman primates have not demonstrated a preference for music. However, previous research has not tested the wide range of acoustic parameters present in many different types of world music. The purpose of the present study is to determine the spontaneous preference of common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) for 3 acoustically contrasting types of world music: West African akan, North Indian raga, and Japanese taiko. Sixteen chimpanzees housed in 2 groups were exposed to 40 min of music from a speaker placed 1.5 m outside the fence of their outdoor enclosure; the proximity of each subject to the acoustic stimulus was recorded every 2 min. When compared with controls, subjects spent significantly more time in areas where the acoustic stimulus was loudest in African and Indian music conditions. This preference for African and Indian music could indicate homologies in acoustic preferences between nonhuman and human primates.

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“…The youngest chimpanzee mother that has been observed at the Gombe Stream was 12 years old. A recent review of investigations of the chimpanzee's sensory capacities concludes that, where reliable information is available, the sensory systems of the chimpanzee and the human are highly similar in structure and function (Prestrude, 1970).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for sentence constitutents in the early utterances of child and chimpanzee.

Gardner

Gardner²

1975

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

148

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it was well known that chimpanzees could learn to make different responses for different goods and services and that chimpanzees could combine and recombine their learned responses into meaningful new sequences. What remained to be determined was the extent to which a chimpanzee could acquire a bona fide human language. The failure of linguists and psycholinguists to devise a behavioral definition of language is an obstacle that we tried to avoid by obtaining observations of the acquisition of sign language by young chimpanzees that can be compared with observations of the acquisition of spoken languages and sign languages by human children. Any theoretical criteria that can be applied to the early utterances of children can also be applied to the early utterances of chimpanzees. If children can be said to have acquired language on the basis of their performance, then chimpanzees can be said to have acquired language to the extent that their performance matches that of children. The use of a natural human language and the integration of this language into intellectually and socially stimulating homelike laboratory conditions permits us to make critical comparisons with human children.Within 51 months of her arrival in our laboratory, there were 132 signs of Ameslan in Washoe's expressive vocabulary and a much larger number of signs in her receptive vocabulary. There were stringent criteria for the inclusion of signs on the list of 132 items of expressive vocabulary and there was continual reassessment to determine that old signs were retained as new signs were added to the list. Discussion of the vocabulary includes qualitative and quantitative comparisons with the recent data for young children and with results of similar investigations in other chimpanzee laboratories.At this time, the best evidence that young children use the items of their vocabulary as sentence constituents can be found in the relations between question and reply when the question is of the type referred to as a "Wh question" (Brown, 1968(Brown, , 1973Ervin-Tripp, 1970). Because Washoe was maintained under similar conditions, her replies to questions were very similar to the replies of children. In this investigation, we selected 10 question frames that were typical of the questions asked of Washoe every day. During the SOth and 51st months of Project Washoe, each of these 10 question frames was used to construct 50 Wh questions, varying in text and context. In terms of providing the sentence constituents specified by the different Wh questions, Washoe's replies were superior to the replies that have been reported as typical of human children at Brown's Stage III.

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Sensory capacities of the chimpanzee: A review.

Cited by 13 publications

References 79 publications

Environmental models and mental modes: Representational processes in the great apes and man.

Environmental models and mental modes: Representational processes in the great apes and man.

Chimpanzees prefer African and Indian music over silence.

Evidence for sentence constitutents in the early utterances of child and chimpanzee.

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