Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T16:00:48.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cognitive mechanisms matter – but they do not explain the absence of teaching in chimpanzees1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

Richard Moore  and
Claudio Tennie
Richard Moore
Affiliation:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, [email protected]://sites.google.com/site/richardmoorecogsci
Claudio Tennie
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. [email protected]://www.claudiotennie.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kline's functional categories for the evolution of teaching blur some valuable distinctions. Moreover, her account provides no answer to the question of why direct active teaching seems to be a uniquely human phenomenon.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , 2015 , e50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

Both authors contributed equally to this commentary as joint first authors.

References

Allritz, M., Tennie, C. & Call, J. (2013) Food washing and placer mining in captive great apes. Primates 54:361–70.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. (1991) Teaching among wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour 41(3):530–32.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. (2012) Wild cultures: A comparison between chimpanzee and human cultures. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000) The chimpanzees of the Taï Forest: Behavioural ecology and evolution. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boesch, C., Head, J. & Robbins, M. (2009) Complex tool sets for honey extraction among chimpanzees in Loango National Park, Gabon. Journal of Human Evolution 56(6):560–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, H. H. (1996) Using language. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dean, L. G., Kendal, R. L., Schapiro, S. J., Thierry, B. & Laland, K. N. (2012) Identification of the social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture. Science 335(6072):1114–18. doi:10.1126/science.1213969.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gergely, G. & Csibra, G. (2005) The social construction of the cultural mind: Imitative learning as a mechanism of human pedagogy. Interaction Studies 6(3):463–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huffman, M. & Hirata, S. (2004) An experimental study of leaf swallowing in captive chimpanzees: Insights into the origin of a self-medicative behavior and the role of social learning. Primates 45(2):113–18.Google Scholar
Lonsdorf, E. (2006) What is the role of the mother in the acquisition of tool-use skills in wild chimpanzees? Animal Cognition 9:36–46.Google Scholar
Masataka, N., Koda, H., Urasopon, N. & Watanabe, K. (2009) Free-ranging macaque mothers exaggerate tool-using behavior when observed by offspring. PLoS ONE 4(3):e4768. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004768.g002.Google Scholar
Matsuzawa, T., Biro, D., Humle, T., Inoue-Nakamura, N., Tonooka, R. & Yamakoshi, G. (2001) Emergence of culture in wild chimpanzees: Education by master-apprenticeship. In: Primate origins of human cognition and behavior, ed. Matsuzawa, T., pp. 557–74. Springer.Google Scholar
Menzel, C., Fowler, A., Tennie, C. & Call, J. (2013) Leaf surface roughness elicits leaf-swallowing behavior in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), but not in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) or orangutans (Pongo abelii). American Journal of Primatology 70:584–93.Google Scholar
Moore, R. (2013a) Evidence and interpretation in great ape gestural communication. Humana-Mente 24(1):27–51.Google Scholar
Moore, R. (2013b) Teaching and social learning in chimpanzees. Biology and Philosophy 28:879–901.Google Scholar
Sanz, C. & Morgan, D. (2007) Chimpanzee tool technology in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. Journal of Human Evolution 52(4):420–33.Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Call J. & Tomasello, M. (2009) Ratcheting up the ratchet: On the evolution of cumulative culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364(1528):2405–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2012) Untrained chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) fail to imitate novel actions. PLoS ONE 7:e41548.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2008) Origins of human communication. MIT.Google Scholar
Whiten, A. & Ham, R. (1992) On the nature and evolution of imitation in the animal kingdom: Reappraisal of a century of research. Advances in the Study of Behavior 21:239–83.Google Scholar