Are great apes tested with an abject object-choice task?

Mulcahy, Nicholas J. and Hedge, Vernon (2012) Are great apes tested with an abject object-choice task?. Animal Behaviour, 83 2: 313-321.


Author Mulcahy, Nicholas J.
Hedge, Vernon
Title Are great apes tested with an abject object-choice task?
Journal name Animal Behaviour  (ERA 2012 Listed)    (ERA 2010 Rank A)   Check publisher's open access policy
Publication date 2012-02
Sub-type Review of research - research literature review (NOT book review
Year available 2011
DOI 10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.11.019
Volume number 83
Issue number 2
ISSN 0003-3472; 1095-8282
Start page 313
End page 321
Total pages 9
Place of publication Oxford, United Kingdom
Publisher Elsevier
Collection year 2012
Language eng
Abstract A surprising finding in comparative social cognition is that great apes seem to have difficulties understanding others’ communicative behaviour. In no other paradigm is this more evident than in the object-choice task in which subjects use a human cue, such as pointing, to infer the correct choice of a reward hidden in one of a number of containers. Apes often perform poorly in the task whereas many other species succeed. One popular explanation for this finding is that apes have not evolved the propensity to understand others’ communicative behaviour because their social systems are based predominantly on competitive relationships. We caution against this hypothesis by highlighting recent experimental evidence that suggests methodological factors are responsible for the apes’ poor performance in object-choice studies. Furthermore, we compared the methodology and results of 63 published object-choice studies in a range of animal taxa. We found that the central object-choice method that is only used with apes and other primates typically results in failure. When, however, modifications are made to this method or apes are tested with a peripheral method that is similar to the one used with many other species, their performance vastly improves. We discuss the significance of this in relation to past object-choice research and make several recommendations as to how future research can be improved upon so that apes are tested in a manner comparable to the testing of other animal species.
Keyword Abject object-choice
Ape
Communicative gesture
Dog
Q-Index Code C1
Q-Index Status Confirmed Code
Institutional Status UQ
Additional Notes Available online 17 December 2011

Document type: Journal Article
Sub-type: Review of research - research literature review (NOT book review
Collections: Official 2013 Collection
School of Psychology Publications
 
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