Synchrony and motor mimicking in chimpanzee observational learning.

ABSTRACT: Cumulative tool-based culture underwrote our species' evolutionary success, and tool-based nut-cracking is one of the strongest candidates for cultural transmission in our closest relatives, chimpanzees. However the social learning processes that may explain both the similarities and differences between the species remain unclear. A previous study of nut-cracking by initially naïve chimpanzees suggested that a learning chimpanzee holding no hammer nevertheless replicated hammering actions it witnessed. This observation has potentially important implications for the nature of the social learning processes and underlying motor coding involved. In the present study, model and observer actions were quantified frame-by-frame and analysed with stringent statistical methods, demonstrating synchro

SUBMITTER: Fuhrmann D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5381545 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature