Abstract
This study investigated whether physical discreteness helps apes to understand the concept of Piagetian conservation (i.e. the invariance of quantities). Subjects were four bonobos, three chimpanzees, and five orangutans. Apes were tested on their ability to conserve discrete/continuous quantities in an over-conservation procedure in which two unequal quantities of edible rewards underwent various transformations in front of subjects. Subjects were examined to determine whether they could track the larger quantity of reward after the transformation. Comparison between the two types of conservation revealed that tests with bonobos supported the discreteness hypothesis. Bonobos, but neither chimpanzees nor orangutans, performed significantly better with discrete quantities than with continuous ones. The results suggest that at least bonobos could benefit from the discreteness of stimuli in their acquisition of conservation skills.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the staff of the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center for their support, and Daniel Stahl for statistical advice. Chikako Suda also would like to thank Laurence King and Franklin Chang for grammatical correction of the manuscript. A part of this study was presented at the Eighth Conference of the German Primate Society in Leipzig, Germany in October 2003. The current experiments comply with the laws of the country in which they were conducted.
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Suda, C., Call, J. Piagetian conservation of discrete quantities in bonobos (Pan paniscus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Anim Cogn 8, 220–235 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0247-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0247-6