Abstract
We investigated the ability to perceive depth from shading, one of the pictorial depth cues, in three chimpanzee infants aged 4–10 months old, using a preferential reaching task commonly used to study pictorial depth perception in human infants. The chimpanzee infants reached significantly more to three-dimensional toys than to pictures thereof and more to the three-dimensional convex than to the concave. Furthermore, two of the three infants reached significantly more to the photographic convex than to the photographic concave. These infants also looked longer at the photographic convex than the concave. Our results suggest that chimpanzees perceive, at least as early as the latter half of the first year of life, pictorial depth defined by shading information. Photographic convexes contain richer information about pictorial depth (e.g., attached shadow, cast shadow, highlighted area, and global difference in brightness) than simple computer-graphic graded patterns. These cues together might facilitate the infants’ perception of depth from shading.
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Acknowledgements
This article was based in part on the bachelor’s thesis of the first author submitted to Kwansei Gakuin University with partial fulfillment. We thank Dr. Hiroshi Imada for his generous support and valuable comments on this research. Thanks are also due to Drs. Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Masayuki Tanaka, Osamu Takenaka, and the staff of the Language and Intelligence Section and the Center for Human Evolution Modeling Research of the Primate Research Institute, for their support throughout the research. Dr. Dora Biro critically read earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank Dr. Naohito Chino at the Aichi Gakuin University for his comments on statistical analyses. This research was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (10CE2005, 12002009, 13610086) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT), and by the Cooperative Research Program of the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University. The preparation of the manuscript was partly supported by the Grant-in-Aid for the 21st Century COE Program (A2 to Kyoto University) from the MEXT.
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Imura, T., Tomonaga, M. Perception of depth from shading in infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Anim Cogn 6, 253–258 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-003-0188-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-003-0188-5