Third-party imitation is not restricted to humans.

ABSTRACT: Imitation of cultural practices is ubiquitous in humans and often involves faithful copying of intransitive (i.e., non-object directed) gestures and societal norms which play a crucial role in human cumulative cultural evolution. Apart from learning these directly from a tutor, humans often learn passively as third-party observers from the interactions of two or more individuals. Whether third-party imitation has evolved outside humans remains unknown. In the current study, we investigated whether undomesticated blue-throated macaws (Ara glaucogularis) could imitate in a third-party setting. A naïve test group (N = 6) passively observed a conspecific demonstrator performing rare intransitive actions in response to specific human gestural commands. Directly afterwards, the observer received

SUBMITTER: Haldar E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12411640 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature