Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Department of Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Primates. 2023 Sep;64(5):483-492. doi: 10.1007/s10329-023-01068-7. Epub 2023 May 24.
Cooperative behaviors among individuals of numerous species play a crucial role in social interactions. There is a special interest in investigating the occurrence of cooperation among apes because this knowledge could also shed light on evolutionary processes and help us understand the origin and development of cooperation in humans and primates in general. Gibbons are phylogenetically intermediate between the great apes and monkeys, and therefore represent a unique opportunity for comparisons. The aim of the present study was to discover whether or not white-handed gibbons (Hylobates lar) show cooperative behaviors. In order to test for the respective behaviors, the gibbons were presented with a commonly used experimental cooperative rope-pulling task. The gibbons in this study did not exhibit cooperative behaviors during the problem-solving task. However, prior training procedures could not be fully completed, hence this project constitutes only the onset of exploring cooperative behaviors in gibbons. Additional behavioral observations revealed that the gibbons spent significantly more time "out of arm's reach to everyone", suggesting that they are less often involved in social interactions, than other, more cooperative primates.
许多物种个体之间的合作行为在社会互动中起着至关重要的作用。人们特别感兴趣的是研究猿类之间是否存在合作行为，因为这一知识也可以揭示进化过程，并帮助我们理解合作在人类和灵长类动物中的起源和发展。长臂猿在进化上介于大型猿类和猴子之间，因此是进行比较的独特机会。本研究的目的是发现白掌长臂猿（Hylobates lar）是否表现出合作行为。为了测试各自的行为，研究人员向长臂猿展示了一种常用的实验性合作拉绳任务。在解决问题的任务中，这些长臂猿没有表现出合作行为。然而，由于之前的训练程序无法完全完成，因此该项目只是探索长臂猿合作行为的开始。进一步的行为观察表明，与其他更具合作性的灵长类动物相比，这些长臂猿“超出每个人的手臂触及范围”的时间明显更长，这表明它们参与社会互动的频率较低。
