Learning from others' mistakes? limits on understanding a trap-tube task by young chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens).

@article{Horner2007LearningFO,
  title={Learning from others' mistakes? limits on understanding a trap-tube task by young chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens).},
  author={Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten},
  journal={Journal of comparative psychology},
  year={2007},
  volume={121 1},
  pages={
          12-21
        }
}
  • V. Horner, A. Whiten
  • Published 1 February 2007
  • Psychology, Biology
  • Journal of comparative psychology
A trap-tube task was used to determine whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) who observed a model's errors and successes could master the task in fewer trials than those who saw only successes. Two- to 7-year-old chimpanzees and 3- to 4-year-old children did not benefit from observing errors and found the task difficult. Two of the 6 chimpanzees developed a successful anticipatory strategy but showed no evidence of representing the core causal relations involved in… 

Figures and Tables from this paper

Chimpanzees’ (Pan troglodytes) problem-solving skills are influenced by housing facility and captive care duration
TLDR
It is found that chimpanzees who arrived at an earlier age at the sanctuary and had therefore spent a larger percentage of their lives in a captive environment, were better problem-solvers than those that arrived at a later age to the sanctuary.
Big brains are not enough: performance of three parrot species in the trap-tube paradigm
TLDR
The trap-tube task has become a benchmark test for investigating physical causality in vertebrates and parrots with relative brain volumes comparable to those of corvids and primates also demonstrate high cognitive abilities are tested.
Learning from others’ mistakes in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)
TLDR
The investigation of whether tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) learn from others’ mistakes suggests that not only humans and apes, but also monkeys may understand the meaning ofOthers’ actions in social learning.
Untrained Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Fail to Imitate Novel Actions
TLDR
Chimpanzees do not seem to copy novel actions, and only some ever copy familiar ones, and due to the having tested only non-enculturated and untrained chimpanzees, the performance of the test subjects speak more than most other studies of the general (dis-)ability of chimpanzees to copy actions, including novel actions.
Multiple imitation mechanisms in children.
TLDR
There may be multiple, dissociable imitation learning mechanisms that are content-specific, and the development of these imitation systems appears to be independent of the operations of other cognitive systems, including trial and error learning, recall, and observational learning.
Social Learning and Culture in Child and Chimpanzee.
  • A. Whiten
  • Biology, Psychology
    Annual review of psychology
  • 2017
TLDR
Field and experimental studies, particularly those in which direct chimpanzee-child comparisons have been made, delineate a growing set of commonalities between the phenomena of social learning and culture in the lives of chimpanzees and humans.
Chimpanzees create and modify probe tools functionally: A study with zoo-housed chimpanzees
TLDR
It is found that tool modification predicted tool use; the chimpanzees began using their tools within a short delay of creating and modifying them, and the chimpanzees performed more tool modifying behaviors when food was available than when they could not gain food through the use of probe tools.
Why Humans Are Unique: Three Theories
  • D. Premack
  • Psychology, Biology
    Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
  • 2010
TLDR
The unique character of domain-general human competence is explained in terms of the interweaving of evolutionarily independent abilities—an interweave found in humans only.
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 65 REFERENCES
Processes of social learning in the tool use of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens).
TLDR
A pattern of results suggest that the chimpanzees were paying attention to the general functional relations in the task and to the results obtained by the demonstrator but not to the actual methods of tool use demonstrated.
Copying results and copying actions in the process of social learning: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens)
TLDR
The procedure used was similar in many ways to the procedure that Meltzoff (Dev Psych 31:1, 1995) used to study the understanding of others’ unfulfilled intentions, and the implications of these findings with regard to chimpanzees’ understanding ofOthers’ intentions are discussed.
Comprehension of Cause-Effect Relations in a Tool-Using Task by Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
TLDR
Five chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were tested to assess their understanding of causality in a tool task and the results favor an alternative hypothesis that relates success to an understanding of the causal relation between the tool-using action and its outcome.
Acquisition and Comprehension of a Tool-Using Behavior by Young Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes): Effects of Age and Modeling
TLDR
Comparisons with human cognitive developmental data and findings on the same task with older apes point to the link between the emergence of imitation, self recognition, and comprehension of the cause-effect relation present in this task.
Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens)
TLDR
It is suggested that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due to a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions, perhaps combined with a differential focus on the results, actions and goals of the demonstrator.
How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task
TLDR
The findings suggest that some great apes may have some causal knowledge about the trap-tube task, however, their success depended on whether they were allowed to choose certain tool-using actions.
Learning from other people's mistakes: causal understanding in learning to use a tool.
TLDR
Two studies indicate that by 3 years of age, children do not indiscriminately imitate actions on a tool, but selectively reproduce those actions that have a desired causal effect.
Lack of comprehension of cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella).
TLDR
Four tufted capuchin monkeys, successful in a tool task in which they used a stick to push a reward out of a tube, were tested in a similar task, with a tube with a hole and a small trap, indicating that they did not take into account the effects of their actions on the reward.
Performance in a tool-using task by common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), an orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella).
TLDR
The results indicate that all these species can solve these tasks, however, only the performance of apes is consistent with emerging comprehension of the causal relations required for the avoidance of errors in the more complex tasks.
Imitative learning of artificial fruit processing in children (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).
TLDR
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first experimental evidence of chimpanzee imitation in a functional task designed to simulate foraging behavior hypothesized to be transmitted culturally in the wild.
...
1
2
3
4
5
...