Human cognitive abilities can be greatly influenced by the presence of an audience. Although often associated with reputation management, which is thought to be unique to humans, it is unclear to what extent this phenomenon is common to non-human animals. To investigate such audience effects in chimpanzees, researchers Kyoto University Contains performances by 6 people Chimpanzee (pan-troglodytes) Over a period of 6 years, we conducted experiments on three different numerical touch screen tasks of varying difficulty and cognitive demands, in a variety of audience compositions. The results showed that chimpanzee performance was influenced by the number and type of audience present.
To investigate whether chimpanzees' task performance is influenced by the presence of an audience, Lin others. analyzed multiple chimpanzee cognitive task data across different types of tasks. Image provided by: Akiho Muramatsu
“It was very surprising to discover that chimpanzees were influenced by the audience, and even by the human audience, in their task performance,” said Kyoto University researcher Dr. Kristen Lin.
“Although we might not expect chimpanzees to particularly care whether other species are watching them perform a task, chimpanzees are influenced by human spectators even depending on the difficulty of the task. The fact that it looks like this suggests that this relationship is more complex than we thought and initially expected. ”
Lin and his colleagues wanted to find out whether the audience effect often attributed to reputation management in humans also existed in non-human primates.
People knew that paying attention to who was looking at them, sometimes unconsciously, would affect their performance.
Chimpanzees live in hierarchical societies, but it was not clear to what extent they were also influenced by the people observing them.
“Our research site is special in that the chimpanzees frequently interact with and even enjoy human company, participating in various touchscreen experiments almost daily for food rewards. '' said Dr. Akiho Muramatsu of Kyoto University.
“So we thought there was an opportunity to not only explore potential similarities in effects that are relevant to viewers, but also do it in the context of chimpanzees, which share a unique bond with humans.”
The researchers made this discovery after analyzing thousands of sessions in which chimpanzees completed touchscreen tasks over a six-year period.
The researchers found that across three different number-based tasks, the chimpanzees performed better on the most difficult task as the number of experimenters observing them increased.
In contrast, they also found that on the simplest tasks, chimpanzees performed worse when they were observed by more experimenters and other familiar people.
Scientists note that the specific mechanisms underlying these audience-related effects remain unclear, even in humans.
They suggest that further studies in non-human apes may provide more insight into how this trait evolved and why it developed.
“Our findings suggest that how much humans care about witnesses and audiences may not be so unique to our species,” said Shinya Yamamoto of Kyoto University. said the doctor.
“These characteristics are a core part of how our society is primarily based on reputation, and if chimpanzees also pay special attention to their audience when performing their tasks, then these It stands to reason that audience-based traits may have evolved before reputation-based traits.''Society arose in our great ape lineage. ”
of the team findings Published in a magazine iscience.
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Kristen Lin others. The presence of an audience influences chimpanzees' performance on cognitive tasks. isciencepublished online on November 8, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111191
Source: www.sci.news
