Rachel Kendal, Lydia M Hopper, Andrew Whiten, Sarah F Brosnan, Susan P Lambeth, Steven J Schapiro, Will Hoppitt
Evolutionary theory predicts that natural selection will fashion cognitive biases to guide when, and from whom, individuals acquire social information, but the precise nature of these biases, especially in ecologically valid group contexts, remains unknown. We exposed four captive groups of chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) to a novel extractive foraging device and, by fitting statistical models, isolated four simultaneously operating transmission biases. These include biases to copy (i) higher-ranking and (ii) expert individuals, and to copy others when (iii) uncertain or (iv) of low rank...
January 2015: Evolution and Human Behavior: Official Journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society