Book chapter
Quantitative Ethnography Reveals Behavioral Elements Associated with Problem-Solving in Wild Chimpanzee Tool-Use
Advances in Quantitative Ethnography, pp 35-49
2024
Abstract
This work uses quantitative ethnography to explore problem-solving in wild chimpanzees in a real-world context. Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans and are known for their behavioral diversity. Tool use is a behavior exhibited by chimpanzees where an environmental material is modified to access embedded resources like social insects or nuts. Given that this is a cognitively complex skill involving elements of choice (e.g., material selection) and flexible combination of many individual behavioral elements, it serves as a visible expression of the problem-solving process. In this study, we use Ordered Network Analysis (ONA) to compare patterns of elements between successful and unsuccessful bouts of a particular type of chimpanzee tool use called termite fishing in a community of Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ellioti) in central Cameroon. We coded 382 videos of chimpanzees from between 2019 and 2022, representing over 5 h of observation time of 17 individual chimpanzees. Networks revealed significant differences in the combinations of termite fishing behavioral elements between periods of successful and unsuccessful termite fishing, pointing to certain behavioral elements that appear to be responses to lack of success. Further, non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank tests suggest that incorporation of certain elements does not significantly increase overall chances of termite fishing success, which implies chimpanzees are responding to specific situations by choosing to incorporate elements that may improve success in a particular context. The findings provide insight into the problem-solving process in chimpanzees and highlight the value of using quantitative ethnography in studies of non-human animal cognition.
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Details
- Title
- Quantitative Ethnography Reveals Behavioral Elements Associated with Problem-Solving in Wild Chimpanzee Tool-Use
- Creators
- Tyler C. Andres-BrayMary Katherine Gonder
- Contributors
- Yoon Jeon Kim (Editor)Zachari Swiecki (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Advances in Quantitative Ethnography, pp 35-49
- Series
- Communications in Computer and Information Science
- Publisher
- Springer Nature Switzerland; Cham
- Number of pages
- 15
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Center for the Advancement of STEM Teaching & Learning Excellence (CASTLE); Biology
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85208733159
- Other Identifier
- 991021966467404721