ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Teaching varies with task complexity in wild chimpanzees.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Chimpanzee culture beyond the conspicuous: Evidence for broad-scale observational social learning in wild individuals.iScience · 2026Article
- Savanna chimpanzee tool and fruit transfers facilitate the transmission of technological behaviours at Dindefelo, Senegal.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Brokering peace in the ape (culture) wars.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- The growing methodological toolkit for identifying and studying social learning and culture in non-human animals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Social tolerance and role model diversity increase tool use learning opportunities across chimpanzee ontogeny.Communications biology · 2025Article
- The development of social attention in orangutans: Comparing peering behavior in wild and zoo-housed individuals.iScience · 2025Article
- Chimpanzees employ context-specific behavioral strategies within fission-fusion societies.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- Planning abilities of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) in tool-using contexts.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- The self-in-the-world map emerged in the primate brain as a basis for Homo sapiens abilities.Development, growth & differentiation · 2024Review
- Protracted development of stick tool use skills extends into adulthood in wild western chimpanzees.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Empirical challenges from the comparative and developmental literature to the Shared Intentionality Theory - a review of alternative data on recursive mind reading, prosociality, imitation and cumulative culture.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- The cultural evolution of teaching.Evolutionary human sciences · 2023Review
- Problem-solving in groups of common marmosets (PNAS nexus · 2022Article
- Field experiments find no evidence that chimpanzee nut cracking can be independently innovated.Nature human behaviour · 2022Article
- Learning from communication versus observation in great apes.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The origins of human cumulative culture: from the foraging niche to collective intelligence.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Collective knowledge and the dynamics of culture in chimpanzees.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Orangutan mothers adjust their behaviour during food solicitations in a way that likely facilitates feeding skill acquisition in their offspring.Scientific reports · 2021Article
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7 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cumulative culture is a transformative force in human evolution, but the social underpinnings of this capacity are debated. Identifying social influences on how chimpanzees acquire tool tasks of differing complexity may help illuminate the evolutionary origins of technology in our own lineage. Humans routinely transfer tools to novices to scaffold their skill development. While tool transfers occur in wild chimpanzees and fulfill criteria for teaching, it is unknown whether this form of helping varies between populations and across tasks. Applying standardized methods, we compared tool transfers during termite gathering by chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo, and in Gombe, Tanzania. At Goualougo, chimpanzees use multiple, different tool types sequentially, choose specific raw materials, and perform modifications that improve tool efficiency, which could make it challenging for novices to manufacture suitable tools. Termite gathering at Gombe involves a single tool type, fishing probes, which can be manufactured from various materials. Multiple measures indicated population differences in tool-transfer behavior. The rate of transfers and probability of transfer upon request were significantly higher at Goualougo, while resistance to transfers was significantly higher at Gombe. Active transfers of tools in which possessors moved to facilitate possession change upon request occurred only at Goualougo, where they were the most common transfer type. At Gombe, tool requests were typically refused. We suggest that these population differences in tool-transfer behavior may relate to task complexity and that active helping plays an enhanced role in the cultural transmission of complex technology in wild apes.
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