TY - JOUR
T1 - The development and flexibility of gaze alternations in bonobos and chimpanzees
AU - Lucca, Kelsey
AU - MacLean, Evan L.
AU - Hare, Brian
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by National
Funding Information:
Funding Information This work was supported in part by National Institute of Health Grant 5 R03 HD070649-02, National Science Foundation grants NSF-BCS-08-27552 and NSF-BCS-10- 25172 to BH and a Summer Research Fellowship from the Duke University Graduate School to KL. The authors would like to thank J. Sudweeks for her assistance in coding, and M. Wilbourn, E. Bergelson, and K. Young for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We thank R. Atencia, L. Pharoah, D. Cox, K. Brown and the chimpanzee caretakers for facilitating research at Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Sanctuary, C. Andre, V. Dhanani, D. Morel, P. Mbonzo, F. Mehl and the bonobo caretakers for their assistance at Lola ya Bonobo, C. Boukindi, G. Shorland and S. Kwetuenda for their assistance with data collection. We also thank the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation, Republic of Congo, and the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technology, Democratic Republic of Congo (permit: MIN.RS/SG/004/2009), for the permits under which this research was conducted. We thank the North Carolina Zoo, and chimpanzee zookeepers for supporting pilot studies of these experiments.
Funding Information:
Institute of Health Grant 5 R03 HD070649-02, National Science Foundation grants NSF-BCS-08-27552 and NSF-BCS-10-25172 to BH and a Summer Research Fellowship from the Duke University Graduate School to KL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2018/7
Y1 - 2018/7
N2 - Infants’ early gaze alternations are one of their first steps towards a sophisticated understanding of the social world. This ability, to gaze alternate between an object of interest and another individual also attending to that object, has been considered foundational to the development of many complex social-cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind and language. However, to understand the evolution of these abilities, it is important to identify whether and how gaze alternations are used and develop in our closest living relatives, bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Here, we evaluated the development of gaze alternations in a large, developmental sample of bonobos (N = 17) and chimpanzees (N = 35). To assess the flexibility of ape gaze alternations, we tested whether they produced gaze alternations when requesting food from a human who was either visually attentive or visually inattentive. Similarly to human infants, both bonobos and chimpanzees produced gaze alternations, and did so more frequently when a human communicative partner was visually attentive. However, unlike humans, who gaze alternate frequently from early in development, chimpanzees did not begin to gaze alternate frequently until adulthood. Bonobos produced very few gaze alternations, regardless of age. Thus, it may be the early emergence of gaze alternations, as opposed gaze alternations themselves, that is derived in the human lineage. The distinctively early emergence of gaze alternations in humans may be a critical underpinning for the development of complex human social-cognitive abilities.
AB - Infants’ early gaze alternations are one of their first steps towards a sophisticated understanding of the social world. This ability, to gaze alternate between an object of interest and another individual also attending to that object, has been considered foundational to the development of many complex social-cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind and language. However, to understand the evolution of these abilities, it is important to identify whether and how gaze alternations are used and develop in our closest living relatives, bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Here, we evaluated the development of gaze alternations in a large, developmental sample of bonobos (N = 17) and chimpanzees (N = 35). To assess the flexibility of ape gaze alternations, we tested whether they produced gaze alternations when requesting food from a human who was either visually attentive or visually inattentive. Similarly to human infants, both bonobos and chimpanzees produced gaze alternations, and did so more frequently when a human communicative partner was visually attentive. However, unlike humans, who gaze alternate frequently from early in development, chimpanzees did not begin to gaze alternate frequently until adulthood. Bonobos produced very few gaze alternations, regardless of age. Thus, it may be the early emergence of gaze alternations, as opposed gaze alternations themselves, that is derived in the human lineage. The distinctively early emergence of gaze alternations in humans may be a critical underpinning for the development of complex human social-cognitive abilities.
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U2 - 10.1111/desc.12598
DO - 10.1111/desc.12598
M3 - Article
C2 - 28812318
AN - SCOPUS:85048967438
SN - 1363-755X
VL - 21
JO - Developmental Science
JF - Developmental Science
IS - 4
M1 - e12598
ER -