Local traditions in gorilla manual skill: Evidence for observational learning of behavioral organization

Animal Cognition

Volumn 14, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 683-693

  Byrne, Richard W ^a   Hobaiter, Catherine ^a   Klailova, Michelle ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Animal culture; Feeding skill; Gorilla gorilla; Great ape; Imitation; Technique

Indexed keywords

ANIMAL; ARTICLE; FEEDING BEHAVIOR; FEMALE; GORILLA; LEARNING; MALE; MOTOR PERFORMANCE;

ANIMALS; FEEDING BEHAVIOR; FEMALE; GORILLA GORILLA; LEARNING; MALE; MOTOR SKILLS;

ANIMALIA; GORILLA GORILLA; GORILLA GORILLA BERINGEI; HEXAPODA; HOMINIDAE; URTICA;

EID: 80052062489     PISSN: 14359448     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10071-011-0403-8     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Altmann J (1974) Observational study of behaviour: sampling methods. Behaviour 49: 227-265.
2. Bates LA, Byrne RW (2010) Imitation: what animal imitation tells us about animal cognition. Wiley Interdisciplinary Rev Cogn Sci doi: 10. 1002/wcs. 77.
3. Bauer PJ (1998) If it is inevitable, it need not be imitated. Behav Brain Sci 21: 684-685.
4. Boesch C (1996) The emergence of cultures among wild chimpanzees. In: Runciman WG, Maynard-Smith J, Dunbar RIM (eds) Evolution of social behaviour patterns in monkeys and man. The British Academy, London, pp 251-268.
5. Boesch C, Tomasello M (1998) Chimpanzee and human cultures. Curr Anthropol 39: 591-614.
6. Boesch C, Marchesi P, Marchesi N, Fruth B, Joulian F (1994) Is nut cracking in wild chimpanzees a cultural behaviour? J Hum Evol 26: 325-338.
7. Byrne RW (1999a) Cognition in great ape ecology. Skill-learning ability opens up foraging opportunities. Symp Zool Soc Lond 72: 333-350.
8. Byrne RW (1999b) Object manipulation and skill organization in the complex food preparation of mountain gorillas. In: Parker ST, Mitchell RW, Miles HL (eds) The mentality of gorillas and orangutans. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 147-159.
9. Byrne RW (2001) Clever hands: the food processing skills of mountain gorillas. In: Robbins MM, Sicotte P, Stewart KJ (eds) Mountain gorillas. Three decades of research at Karisoke. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
10. Byrne RW (2003) Imitation as behaviour parsing. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 358: 529-536.
11. Byrne RW (2007) Culture in great apes: using intricate complexity in feeding skills to trace the evolutionary origin of human technical prowess. Philos Trans R Soc B 362: 577-585.
12. Byrne RW, Byrne JME (1991) Hand preferences in the skilled gathering tasks of mountain gorillas (Gorilla g. beringei). Cortex 27: 521-546.
13. Byrne RW, Byrne JME (1993) Complex leaf-gathering skills of mountain gorillas (Gorilla g. beringei): variability and standardization. Am J Primatol 31: 241-261.
14. Byrne RW, Russon AE (1998) Learning by imitation: a hierarchical approach. Behav Brain Sci 21: 667-721.
15. Byrne RW, Stokes EJ (2002) Effects of manual disability on feeding skills in gorillas and chimpanzees: a cognitive analysis. Int J Primatol 23: 539-554.
16. Byrne RW, Corp N, Byrne JME (2001a) Estimating the complexity of animal behaviour: how mountain gorillas eat thistles. Behaviour 138: 525-557.
17. Byrne RW, Corp N, Byrne JME (2001b) Manual dexterity in the gorilla: bimanual and digit role differentiation in a natural task. Anim Cogn 4: 347-361.
18. Byrne RW, Barnard PJ, Davidson I, Janik VM, McGrew WC, Miklósi Á, Wiessner P (2004) Understanding culture across species. Trends Cogn Sci 8: 341-346.
19. Caldwell CA, Millen AE (2009) Social learning mechanisms and cumulative cultural evolution: is imitation necessary? Psychol Sci 20: 1478-1483.
20. Connolly K, Elliott JM (1972) The evolution and ontogeny of hand function. In: Blurton-Jones N (ed) Ethological studies of child behaviour. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 329-383.
21. Corp N, Byrne RW (2002) The ontogeny of manual skill in wild chimpanzees: evidence from feeding on the fruit of Saba florida. Behaviour 139: 137-168.
22. Custance D, Whiten A, Fredman T (1999) Social learning of an artificial fruit task in capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). J Comp Psychol 113: 13-23.
23. de Waal FBM (1998) No imitation without identification. Behav Brain Sci 21: 689.
24. Fox E, Sitompul A, van Schaik CP (1999) Intelligent tool use in wild Sumatran orangutans. In: Parker ST, Miles HL, Mitchell RW (eds) The mentality of gorillas and orangutans. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 99-116.
25. Galef BG (2003) "Traditional" foraging behaviours of brown and black rats (Rattus norwegicus and Rattus rattus). In: Fragaszy DM, Perry S (eds) The biology of traditions: models and evidence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 159-186.
26. Hobaiter C, Byrne RW (2010) Able-bodied wild chimpanzees imitate a motor procedure used by a disabled individual to overcome handicap. PLoS One 5: e11959.
27. Hoppitt WJE, Laland KN (2008) Social processes influencing learning in animals: a review of the evidence. Adv Study Behav 38: 105-165.
28. Humle T, Matsuzawa T (2002) Ant dipping among the chimpanzees of Bossou, Guinea, and some comparisons with other sites. Am J Phys Anthropol 58: 133-148.
29. Laland KN, Janik V (2006) The animal cultures debate. Trends Evol Ecol 21: 542-547.
30. Langergraber KE, Boesch C, Inoue E, Inoue-Murayama M, Mitani JC, Nishida T, Pusey AE, Reynolds V, Schubert G, Wrangham RW, Wroblewski E, Vigilant L (2010) Genetic and 'cultural' similarity in wild chimpanzees. Proc R Soc B doi: 10. 1098/rspb. 2010. 1112.
31. McGrew WC (1974) Tool use by wild chimpanzees feeding on driver ants. J Hum Evol 3: 501-508.
32. McGrew WC (1992) Chimpanzee material culture: implications for human evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
33. McGrew WC, Ham RM, White L, Tutin CG, Fernandez M (1997) Why don't chimpanzees in Gabon crack nuts? Int J Primatol 18: 353-374.
34. Mobius Y, Boesch C, Koops K, Matsuzawa T, Humle T (2008) Cultural differences in army ant predation by West African chimpanzees? A comparative study of microecological variables. Anim Behav 76: 37-45.
35. Sawyer SC, Robbins MM (2009) A novel food processing technique by a wild mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei). Folia Primatol 80: 83-88.
36. Stafford DK, Milliken GW, Ward JP (1993) Patterns of hand and mouth lateral biases in bamboo leaf shoot feeding and simple food reaching in the gentle lemur (Hapalemur griseus). Am J Primatol 29: 195-207.
37. Stoinski TS, Wrate JL, Ure N, Whiten A (2001) Imitative learning by captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in a simulated food-processing task. J Comp Psychol 115: 272-281.
38. Stokes EJ, Quiatt D, Reynolds V (1999) Snare injuries to chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) at 10 study sites in East and West Africa. Am J Primatol 49: 104-105.
39. Tennie C, Hedwig D, Call J, Tomasello M (2008) An experimental study of nettle feeding in captive gorillas. Am J Primatol 70: 584-593.
40. Tennie C, Call J, Tomasello M (2009) Great ape traditions and zones of latent solutions. St Andrews, Scotland.
41. Tomasello M (1998) Emulation learning and cultural learning. Behav Brain Sci 21: 703-704.
42. van Schaik CP, Ancrenaz M, Borgen G, Galdikas B, Knott CD, Singleton I, Suzuki A, Utami SS, Merrill M (2003) Orangutan cultures and the evolution of material culture. Science 299: 102-105.
43. Vereijken B, Whiting HTA (1998) Hoist by their own petard: the constraints of hierarchical models. Behav Brain Sci 21: 705.
44. Whiten A (2005) The second inheritance system of chimpanzees and humans. Nature 437: 52-55.
45. Whiten A, Goodall J, McGrew WC, Nishida T, Reynolds V, Sugiyama Y, Tutin CEG, Wrangham RW, Boesch C (1999) Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature 399: 682-685.
46. Whiten A, Goodall J, McGrew WC, Nishida T, Reynolds V, Sugiyama Y, Tutin CEG, Wrangham RW, Boesch C (2001) Charting cultural variation in chimpanzees. Behaviour 138: 1481-1516.
47. Whiten A, Horner V, de Waal FBM (2005) Conformity to cultural norms of tool use in chimpanzees. Nature 437: 737-740.