Child development specialists often assess a patient’s ability to complete tasks that involve multiple steps. One researcher found that many chimpanzees passed these tests with flying colors. report in a diary Peer J.
“We found objective evidence that chimpanzees in the wild, just like humans, break down technical tasks into manageable subtasks and tackle these subtasks one at a time. ” he says. Elliot Howard Spinkstudy author. He conducted this research while studying at Oxford, but is now affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior.
How chimpanzees break down tasks
humans too, and chimpanzee It relies on two separate but related strategies. First, break down complex tasks into discrete steps and sequence them. Then, chunk related steps together.
One way to compare these behaviors is to look at how both chimpanzees and humans process food. Human cooking may seem more complex on the outside, with many more items in the sequence and within each chunk, but the approach is generally the same.
“Nut cracking is one of the most complex naturally occurring tool-using behaviors seen in non-human animals, as it requires the simultaneous coordination of multiple objects (nuts, hammer stone, anvil stone).” Howard Spink says. They need to collect tools and nuts and organize them correctly, and often perform some peeling motions once the nuts are cracked.
“Let’s compare human food processing behavior to all the steps required to create a simple meal,” says Howard Spink. “There are far more objects and steps, and the process can take hours instead of minutes.”
read more: Chimpanzees may continually learn as they age, a factor in human evolution
remove human prejudice
Previous studies have observed this behavior in chimpanzees. But rather than relying solely on human judgment, the new study uses mathematical analysis. For example, finding chunks can be very subjective. What makes a chunk? When a chimpanzee pauses to reorganize an object and then returns to the same task, is it one or two chunks? How many clumps are there when you pound it and then go back to peeling it?
“Humans have a strong bias that they see chunks even when they aren’t present, which means we can’t necessarily say that these chunks are present,” says Howard Spink.
To eliminate human bias, scientists relied heavily on statistics. This allows you to calmly explore thousands of action combinations of varying lengths. These abstract statistical relationships can help answer the chunk vs. non-chunk question.
read more: Can animals learn language like humans?
learning pattern
However, direct observations have revealed some interesting patterns in chimpanzee learning and development. The two youngest chimpanzees the researchers observed showed signs of chunking. But they also realized that, just like human children, they were easily distracted.
“Adults are more efficient at cracking nuts when using stone tools, but young people tend to be less efficient, especially when they’re young and often play with nuts and stones,” says Howard Spink.
The group plans to further study how chunking of tools and behavioral sequences emerges during development in wild chimpanzees. They also want to know when these behaviors emerged through evolution.
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik was a science journalist for more than 20 years, specializing in U.S. life sciences policy and global scientific career issues. He started his career in newspapers but switched to scientific magazines. His research has appeared in publications such as Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
