Chimpanzees' flexible targeted helping based on an understanding of conspecifics' goals.

ABSTRACT: Humans extensively help others altruistically, which plays an important role in maintaining cooperative societies. Although some nonhuman animals are also capable of helping others altruistically, humans are considered unique in our voluntary helping and our variety of helping behaviors. Many still believe that this is because only humans can understand others' goals due to our unique "theory of mind" abilities, especially shared intentionality. However, we know little of the cognitive mechanisms underlying helping in nonhuman animals, especially if and how they understand others' goals. The present study provides the empirical evidence for flexible targeted helping depending on conspecifics' needs in chimpanzees. The subjects of this study selected an appropriate tool from a random set of

SUBMITTER: Yamamoto S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3295314 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature