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. 2017 Sep 7;7(1):10923.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-11400-z.

Information seeking about tool properties in great apes

Manuel Bohn  1 , Matthias Allritz  2   3 , Josep Call  2   3 , Christoph J Völter  2   3
Affiliations

Information seeking about tool properties in great apes

Manuel Bohn et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Evidence suggests that great apes engage in metacognitive information seeking for food items. To support the claim that a domain-general cognitive process underlies ape metacognition one needs to show that selective information seeking extends to non-food items. In this study, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) either had to determine the location of a desired food item or a property of a non-food item (length of a tool). We manipulated whether subjects received prior information about the item's location or property. During the test, subjects had the opportunity to seek the respective information. Results show that apes engaged in more information seeking when they had no prior knowledge. Importantly, this selective pattern of information seeking applied to food as well as to tools.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic overview of the general setup (a) and the baiting constellations in the tool ends protruding (b), tool ends occluded (c) and food (d) condition. © MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Proportion (+SE) of trials with looks per phase (tool1, food, tool2) and trial type (hidden vs. visible).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Average number of looks (and SE) per subject in visible and hidden trials for tool ends protruding and tool ends occluded.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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