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Chimpanzees’ (Pan troglodytes) use of gaze cues in object-choice tasks: different methods yield different results

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Abstract

To assess the influence of different procedures on chimpanzees’ performance in object-choice tasks, five adult chimpanzees were tested using three experimenter-given cues to food location: gazing, glancing, and pointing. These cues were delivered to the subjects in an identical fashion but were deployed within the context of two distinct meta-procedures that have been previously employed with this species with conflicting results. In one procedure, the subjects entered the test unit and approached the experimenter (who had already established the cue) on each trial. In the other procedure, the subjects stayed in the test unit throughout a session, witnessed the hiding procedure, and waited for a delay of 10 s during which the cue was provided. The subjects scored at high levels far exceeding chance in response to the gaze cue only when they approached the experimenter for each trial. They performed at chance levels when they stayed inside the test unit throughout the session. They scored at chance levels on all other cues irrespective of the procedure. These findings imply that (a) chimpanzees can immediately exploit social gaze cues, and (b) previous conflicting findings were likely due to the different meta-procedures that were used.

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Notes

  1. It should be noted that other studies involving these subjects’ use of gaze cues to locate objects, using different procedures, were conducted between the first two experiments of Povinelli et al. (1999) and the archived replication study (see Povinelli et al. 1997, 2002). These published data merely reinforce our point concerning the subjects’ initial and stable above-chance performance in responding to the gaze cue using the LEAVE method.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Anthony Rideaux, Luke Brean, and Amy Roberthon for crucial help in conducting this study. We also thank several undergraduate students for their assistance of various kinds in the conduct of this study. Further, we are grateful to four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. The research reported in this article was approved by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and was conducted in accordance with all applicable laws of the Unites States of America. The work was funded by a James S. McDonnell Centennial Fellowship Award to DJP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurocognition, Faculty of Psychology, Universiteit Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Jochen Barth

  2. Cognitive Evolution Group, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, New Iberia, LA, 70560, USA

    James E. Reaux & Daniel J. Povinelli

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  1. Jochen Barth
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  2. James E. Reaux
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  3. Daniel J. Povinelli
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Correspondence to Jochen Barth.

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Barth, J., Reaux, J.E. & Povinelli, D.J. Chimpanzees’ (Pan troglodytes) use of gaze cues in object-choice tasks: different methods yield different results. Anim Cogn 8, 84–92 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0235-x

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