Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T02:54:30.517Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Could nonhuman great apes also have cultural evolutionary psychology?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2019

Claudio Tennie Open the ORCID record for Claudio Tennie [Opens in a new window]
Claudio Tennie*
Affiliation:
Department for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen 72070, Germany. [email protected]://www.claudiotennie.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Attempted answers are given to (a) whether nonhuman great apes (apes) also have evolved imitation (answer: no); (b) whether humans can transmit imitation as a gadget to apes (answer: yes, partly); (c) whether human-to-ape transmission can kickstart subsequent and stable ape cultural evolutionary psychology (“CEP”; answer: unlikely); and (d) when CEP evolved in our lineage (answer: relatively late).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e184
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Byrne, R. W. (2016) Evolving insight. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clay, Z. & Tennie, C. (2018) Is overimitation a uniquely human phenomenon? Insights from human children as compared to bonobos. Child Development 89(5):1535–44. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12857.Google Scholar
Custance, D. M., Whiten, A. & Bard, K. A. (1995) Can young chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) imitate arbitrary actions? Hayes and Hayes (1952) revisited. Behaviour 132(11): 837–59.Google Scholar
Eerkens, J. W. & Lipo, C. P. (2005) Cultural transmission, copying errors, and the generation of variation in material culture and the archaeological record. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24(4)316–34.Google Scholar
Fouts, R. S., Fouts, D. H. & Van Cantfort, T. E. (1989) The infant Loulis learns signs from cross-fostered chimpanzees. In: Teaching sign language to chimpanzees, ed. Gardner, R. A., Gardner, B. T. & Van Cantfort, T. E., pp. 280–92. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, H. D. & Ross, S. R. (2014) The impact of atypical early histories on pet or performer chimpanzees. PeerJ, 2:e579.Google Scholar
Gardner, B. T. & Gardner, R. A. (1971) Chapter 3 – Two-way communication with an infant chimpanzee. In: Behavior of nonhuman primates, vol. 4, ed. Schrier, A. M. & Stollnitz, F., pp. 117–184. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Gardner, R. A. & Gardner, B. T. (1989) A cross-fostering laboratory. In: Teaching sign language to chimpanzees, ed. Gardner, R. A., Gardner, B. T. & Van Cantfort, T. E., pp. 1–28. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Heyes, C. (2018) Cognitive gadgets: The cultural evolution of thinking. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Leavens, D. A. & Hopkins, W. D. (1999) The whole-hand point: The structure and function of pointing from a comparative perspective. Journal of Comparative Psychology 113(4):417–25.Google Scholar
Pope, S. M., Taglialatela, J. P., Skiba, S. A. & Hopkins, W. D. (2018) Changes in frontoparietotemporal connectivity following do-as-I-do imitation training in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 30(3):421–431.Google Scholar
Rivas, E. (2003) Gimme Gimme Gimme. The recent signing behaviour of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in interactions with longtime human companions. Doctoral dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen. Available at: http://repository.ubn.ru.nl/handle/2066/76506.Google Scholar
Rivas, E. (2005) Recent use of signs by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in interactions with humans. Journal of Comparative Psychology 119(4):404–17.Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Braun, D. R., Premo, L. S. & McPherron, S. P. (2016) The Island test for cumulative culture in the Paleolithic. In: The nature of culture, pp. 121–133. Springer.Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2009) Ratcheting up the ratchet: On the evolution of cumulative culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364(1528):2405–15.Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2012) Untrained chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) fail to imitate novel actions. PLoS One 7(8):e41548. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0041548.Google Scholar
Tennie, C., Premo, L. S., Braun, D. R. & McPherron, S. P. (2017) Resetting the null hypothesis: Early stone tools and cultural transmission. Current Anthropology 58(5):652–72. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/693846.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2019) Becoming human: A theory of ontogeny. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Call, J., Warren, J., Frost, G. T., Carpenter, M. & Nagell, K. (1997) The ontogeny of chimpanzee gestural signals: A comparison across groups and generations. Evolution of Communication 1(2):223–59.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Gust, D. & Forst, T. (1989) A longitudinal investigation of gestural communication in young chimpanzees. Primates 30(1):35–50.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Savage-Rumbaugh, S. & Kruger, A. C. (1993b) Imitative learning of actions on objects by children, chimpanzees, and enculturated chimpanzees. Child Development 64(6):1688–705.Google Scholar