Strategies used to combine seriated cups by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), and capuchins (Cebus apella)

Abstract

The authors investigated strategies used to combine seriated cups by apes (Pan troglodytes and P. paniscus) and monkeys (Cebus apella) using a protocol reported in P. M. Greenfield, K. Nelson, and E. Saltzman's (1972) study with children. It was hypothesized that apes would exhibit more hierarchical combinations of cups than monkeys, given apes' language capacity, and that apes would seriate the cups more efficiently than monkeys. As predicted, apes made many structures with the cups using a variety of strategies, and monkeys rarely combined the cups. After a training phase to orient monkeys to the task, the 2 genera did not differ in the strategies used to combine the cups or in efficiency in seriating the cups. Success in this task suggests that sensorimotor versions of hierarchically organized combinatorial activity are well within apes' and monkeys' abilities.