Feature Versus Spatial Strategies by Orangutans (Pongo abelii) and Human Children (Homo sapiens) in a Cross-Dimensional Task (original) (raw)
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International journal of comparative psychology / ISCP; sponsored by the International Society for Comparative Psychology and the University of Calabria
In this experiment, orangutans' ability to use social versus non-social cues on an object-choice task was examined. In addition, the role of spatial proximity was investigated, by matching the distance between the cue and the target object across both social and non-social conditions. Subjects took significantly fewer trials to learn to use social cues (a finger touching the target object and an experimenter's face hovering above the target object) than non-social cues (paper markers). There was no statistical difference between their performance with cues that were physically contiguous with the target object and those that were distal spatially, regardless of whether the cue was social or non-social in nature. Evidence for spontaneous cue use was strongest for the social-contiguous condition (a finger touching the target object). These results suggest that spatial proximity alone cannot explain apes' performance on these types of tasks. Although subjects may have diffi...
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Chimpanzees and orangutans are able to generate innovative behaviors to solve complicated physical problems. For example, when presented with an out-of-reach peanut at the bottom of a vertical tube (floating peanut task-FPT), some of them spontaneously spit water into the tube until the peanut floats to the top. Yet, it is unclear whether this innovative solution results from repeating those actions that bring the peanut incrementally closer to the top or from anticipating the solution before acting. In the current study, we addressed this question by presenting three naïve orangutans with an opaque version of the FPT that prevented them from obtaining visual information about the effect of their actions on the position of the peanut. One of the subjects solved the opaque FPT in the very first trial: he collected water from the faucet and poured it into the opaque tube repeatedly until the hitherto non-visible peanut reached the top. This provides evidence for the first time that or...