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Do Chimpanzees Use Weight to Select Hammer Tools?
- Source :
- PLoS One, PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 7, p e41044 (2012)
- Publication Year :
- 2012
-
Abstract
- This study was financially supported by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Predoc Grant (http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-summer/index.html) to Cornelia Schrauf. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The extent to which tool-using animals take into account relevant task parameters is poorly understood. Nut cracking is one of the most complex forms of tool use, the choice of an adequate hammer being a critical aspect in success. Several properties make a hammer suitable for nut cracking, with weight being a key factor in determining the impact of a strike; in general, the greater the weight the fewer strikes required. This study experimentally investigated whether chimpanzees are able to encode the relevance of weight as a property of hammers to crack open nuts. By presenting chimpanzees with three hammers that differed solely in weight, we assessed their ability to relate the weight of the different tools with their effectiveness and thus select the most effective one(s). Our results show that chimpanzees use weight alone in selecting tools to crack open nuts and that experience clearly affects the subjects' attentiveness to the tool properties that are relevant for the task at hand. Chimpanzees can encode the requirements that a nut-cracking tool should meet (in terms of weight) to be effective. Publisher PDF
- Subjects :
- Male
Time Factors
Property (programming)
Chi square tests
ANVILS
WILD CHIMPANZEES
lcsh:Medicine
IVORY-COAST
Monkeys
Wildlife
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Choice Behavior
law.invention
Task (project management)
STONE HAMMERS
law
Psychology
lcsh:Science
Problem Solving
Multidisciplinary
Animal Behavior
Equipment Design
PAN-TROGLODYTES
Mammalogy
Female
Cognitive psychology
Research Article
Nut
Côte d'Ivoire
Pan troglodytes
Animal Types
Cote d ivoire
Biology
Research laboratories
NUT-CRACKING BEHAVIOR
Animals
Learning
Hammer
Community ecology
Chimpanzees
Evolutionary Biology
Tool Use Behavior
lcsh:R
Cognitive Psychology
Reasoning
lcsh:Q
Veterinary Science
Decision making
Zoology
MONKEYS CEBUS-LIBIDINOSUS
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS One, PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 7, p e41044 (2012)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....87cada7680532cfdfaeed6c2622bac59