How the great apes (Pan troglodytes, Pongo pygmaeus, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla) perform on the reversed reward contingency task II: transfer to new quantities, long-term retention, and the impact of quantity ratios.

Full Abstract

We tested 6 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), 3 orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), 4 bonobos (Pan paniscus), and 2 gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) in the reversed reward contingency task. Individuals were presented with pairs of quantities ranging between 0 and 6 food items. Prior to testing, some experienced apes had solved this task using 2 quantities while others were totally naïve. Experienced apes transferred their ability to multiple-novel pairs after 6 to 19 months had elapsed since their initial testing. Two out of 6 naïve apes (1 chimpanzee, 1 bonobo) solved the task--a proportion comparable to that of a previous study using 2 pairs of quantities. Their acquisition speed was also comparable to the successful subjects from that study. The ratio between quantities explained a large portion of the variance but affected naïve and experienced individuals differently. For smaller ratios, naïve individuals were well below 50% correct and experienced ones were well above 50%, yet both groups tended to converge toward 50% for larger ratios. Thus, some apes require no procedural modifications to overcome their strong bias for selecting the larger of 2 quantities.PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

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Author information

Author/s: Uher, Jana (J); Call, Josep (J);

Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. uher(-atsign-)primate-personality.net

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) (J Comp Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-May; vol 122 (issue 2) : pp 204-12

Dates: Created 2008/05/20; Completed 2008/08/29;

PMID: 18489236, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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