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Chimpanzees communicate to coordinate a cultural practice Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp University of Antwerp

Zoë Goldsborough, Anne M. Schel, Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen

Human culture thrives by virtue of communication, yet whether communication plays an influential role in the cultural lives of other animals remains understudied. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees use communication to engage in a cultural practice by analysing grooming handclasp (GHC) interactions-a socio-cultural behaviour requiring interindividual coordination for successful execution. Previous accounts attributed GHC initiations to ...

Biased cultural transmission of a social custom in chimpanzees Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, William J. E. Hoppitt

Cultural transmission studies in animals have predominantly focused on identifying between-group variation in tool-use techniques, while immaterial cultures remain understudied despite their potential for highlighting similarities between human and animal culture. Here, using long-term data from two chimpanzee communities, we tested whether one of chimpanzees' most enigmatic social customs-the grooming handclasp-is culturally transmitted by ...

What isn't social tolerance? The past, present, and possible future of an overused term in the field of primatology Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp University of Antwerp

S.E. DeTroy, Daniel B. M. Haun, Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen
In the past four decades, the term social tolerance has been utilized to describe, explain, and predict many different aspects of primates' sociality and has been measured with a large range of traits and behaviors. To date, however, there has been little discussion on whether these different phenomena all reflect one and the same construct. This paper opens the discussion by presenting the historical development of the term social tolerance and ...

Chimpanzees behave prosocially in a group-specific manner Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp University of Antwerp

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, S.E. DeTroy, S.P. Kaufhold, C. Dubois, S. Schütte, Josep Call, Daniel B. M. Haun

Chimpanzees act cooperatively in the wild, but whether they afford benefits to others, and whether their tendency to act prosocially varies across communities, is unclear. Here, we show that chimpanzees from neighboring communities provide valuable resources to group members at personal cost, and that the magnitude of their prosocial behavior is group specific. Provided with a resource-donation experiment allowing free (partner) choice, we ...

Copy-the-majority of instances or individuals? Two approaches to the majority and their consequences for conformist decision-making Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp

Thomas J. H. Morgan, Alberto Acerbi, Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen
Cultural evolution is the product of the psychological mechanisms that underlie individual decision making. One commonly studied learning mechanism is a disproportionate preference for majority opinions, known as conformist transmission. While most theoretical and experimental work approaches the majority in terms of the number of individuals that perform a behaviour or hold a belief, some recent experimental studies approach the majority in ...

Foraging zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) are public information users rather than conformists Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp University of Antwerp

Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, Thomas J. H. Morgan, K. Riebel
Social learning enables adaptive information acquisition provided that it is not random but selective. To understand species typical decision-making and to trace the evolutionary origins of social learning, the heuristics social learners use need to be identified. Here, we experimentally tested the nature of majority influence in the zebra finch. Subjects simultaneously observed two demonstrator groups differing in relative and absolute numbers ...

Chimpanzees' behavioral flexibility, social tolerance, and use of tool-composites in a progressively challenging foraging problem Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp University of Antwerp

R.A. Harrison, Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, A. Whiten

Behavioral flexibility is a critical ability allowing animals to respond to changes in their environment. Previous studies have found evidence of inflexibility when captive chimpanzees are faced with changing task parameters. We provided two groups of sanctuary-housed chimpanzees with a foraging task in which solutions were restricted over time. Initially, juice could be retrieved from within a tube by hand or by using tool materials, but ...

Why intergroup variation matters for understanding behaviour Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp

Stephan Kaufhold, Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen
Intergroup variation (IGV) refers to variation between different groups of the same species. While its existence in the behavioural realm has been expected and evidenced, the potential effects of IGV are rarely considered in studies that aim to shed light on the evolutionary origins of human socio-cognition, especially in our closest living relatives—the great apes. Here, by taking chimpanzees as a point of reference, we argue that (i) IGV could ...

Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) console a bereaved mother? Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp University of Antwerp

Zoë Goldsborough, Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen, K.W.T. Kolff, F.B.M. de Waal, C.E. Webb
Comparative thanatology encompasses the study of death-responses in non-human animals and aspires to elucidate the evolutionary origins of human behavior in the context of death. Previous reports have revealed that humans are not the only species affected by the death of group members. Non-human primates in particular seem to show behaviors such as congregating around the deceased, carrying the corpse for prolonged periods of time (predominantly ...