Chimpanzees' socially maintained food preferences indicate both conservatism and conformity.

ABSTRACT: Chimpanzees remain fixed on a single strategy, even if a novel, more efficient, strategy is introduced. Previous studies reporting such findings have incorporated paradigms in which chimpanzees learn one behavioural method and then are shown a new one that the chimpanzees invariably do not adopt. This study provides the first evidence that chimpanzees show such conservatism even when the new method employs the identical required behaviour as the first, but for a different reward. Groups of chimpanzees could choose to exchange one of two types of inedible tokens, with each token type being associated with a different food reward: one type was rewarded with a highly preferred food (grape) and the other type was rewarded with a less preferred food (carrot). Individuals first observed a model

SUBMITTER: Hopper LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4801479 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature