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A New Study Has Shown That Chimpanzees May Be Able To Determine Whether Their Partners Know They Are In
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| Term Paper Title | A New Study Has Shown That Chimpanzees May Be Able To Determine Whether Their Partners Know They Are In |
| # of Words | 803 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 3.21 |
A new study has shown that chimpanzees may be able to determine whether their partners know they are in
danger. This suggests that these primates are able to decide how ignorant or informed their peers are about
an unexpected situation.
The finding, made by a team of researchers at Ohio State University's Comparative Cognition Project,
suggests that chimps share with humans the ability to perceive the knowledge state of a peer, and perhaps
the intention to protect that peer.
Earlier experiments with both rhesus and Japanese macaque monkeys failed to show the same abilities in
those animals. These new results strengthen the argument that in some ways, chimpanzees are closer to
humans than they are to other primates.
The studies were presented Aug. 16 in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Psychological
Association. Sally Boysen, associate professor of psychology at Ohio State and director of the project, said
the fundamental question for the test was whether one chimpanzee could tell if another was ignorant of a
specific situation, in this case, of a threat or a reward.
Boysen and her colleagues tested three pairs of chimpanzees at the Ohio State colony. Two adult males,
Kermit and Darrell, who had been together for 18 years, were tested, along with a pair of females, Sarah
and Abagail, and a male and female -- Bobby and Sheba.
For the tests, Boysen modeled both a treat and a threat to the chimps. She used grapes, a food the chimps
highly desired, as the hidden treat. A member of the research group hiding with a tranquilizer dart was the
threat. All of the animals in the study had previously been sedated by a dart or had seen a tranquilizer dart
used, and saw it as a threat.
In half of the test conditions, both animals in the pair were able to watch as either the grapes were hidden in
the cage, or a researcher with the tranquilizer dart hid as a predator.
For the rest of the experiments, one animal was placed in an adjoining cage with a clear view of the food or
threat while the other animal was kept off in a nearby room.
Boysen wanted to know if one animal would "tell" the other about the reward or threat. If they did, it would
mean one animal would have to decide how well informed the other was about a given situation.
When she tested the animals with the hidden grapes, absolutely nothing happe
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