Dufour V, Sterck E H M
Ethology Research, Animal Science Department, Biomedical Primate Research Centre, Rijswijk, The Netherlands.
Behav Processes. 2008 Sep;79(1):19-27. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2008.04.003. Epub 2008 Apr 22.
Planning has long been considered a uniquely human capacity. Lately, however, it has been shown that apes and a corvid species act now to derive a material future benefit. Since primates are highly social animals and their sociality is considered a strong selective force that resulted in complex cognitive capacities, planning is also expected in social situations. Unfortunately, prompting from social partners cannot be excluded in a social setting. Therefore, we controlled for this factor by testing the capacity to plan in chimpanzees using an exchange paradigm, that involves both a material and a social component, and a tool-use paradigm, similar to the one used on two other ape species. All chimpanzees failed to plan in the exchange task, but three individuals showed planning behavior in the tool-use task. Our methods controlled for the fact that chimpanzees were not prompted by the visibility of the reward at the moment of planning and also could not repeat a previously acquired routine. The best interpretation for our results is that chimpanzees can plan. However, planning was limited to the situation where the action to attain the future benefit only depended on a chimpanzee's own behavior.
长期以来，规划一直被视为人类独有的能力。然而，最近有研究表明，猿类和一种鸦科动物现在会采取行动以获取未来的物质利益。由于灵长类动物是高度社会化的动物，它们的社会性被认为是导致复杂认知能力的强大选择力量，因此在社交情境中也有望出现规划行为。不幸的是，在社交环境中无法排除来自社交伙伴的提示。因此，我们通过使用一种交换范式和一种工具使用范式来测试黑猩猩的规划能力，从而控制了这一因素。交换范式涉及物质和社会两个组成部分，工具使用范式与用于其他两种猿类物种的范式类似。所有黑猩猩在交换任务中都未能进行规划，但有三只个体在工具使用任务中表现出了规划行为。我们的方法控制了这样一个事实，即黑猩猩在规划时不会受到奖励可见性的提示，也无法重复之前习得的常规行为。对我们结果的最佳解释是，黑猩猩能够进行规划。然而，规划仅限于获取未来利益的行动仅取决于黑猩猩自身行为的情况。
