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The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem

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Date
21/05/2020
Author
Duguid, Shona
Wyman, Emily
Grueneisen, Sebastian
Tomasello, Michael
Keywords
Cooperation
Coordination
Communication
Chimpanzees
Children
BF Psychology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Psychology (miscellaneous)
DAS
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Abstract
One of the challenges of collaboration is to coordinate decisions with others, and recent theories have proposed that humans, in particular, evolved skills to address this challenge. To test this hypothesis, we compared the coordination abilities of 4-year-old children and chimpanzees with a simple coordination problem. To retrieve a reward from a “puzzle box,” pairs of individuals were simply required to choose the same 1 of 4 options. If successful, they each received the same reward, so there were no conflicts of interest. Individuals were paired with multiple partners over time. Both species were able to coordinate, but there were marked differences in the way they did so. Children were able to coordinate quickly and flexibly, adjusting easily to new partners, suggesting an understanding of the coordination process. In contrast, chimpanzees took time to converge on a single solution with each new partner, with no gains across partners, suggesting that their coordination was based only on repeating successful past choices. Together, these results support the hypothesis that humans have evolved unique skills for coordinating decisions and actions with others in the pursuit of common interests.
Citation
Duguid , S , Wyman , E , Grueneisen , S & Tomasello , M 2020 , ' The strategies used by chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) and children ( Homo sapiens ) to solve a simple coordination problem ' , Journal of Comparative Psychology , vol. Online First . https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000220
Publication
Journal of Comparative Psychology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000220
ISSN
0735-7036
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 American Psychological Association. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000220
Description
The authors acknowledge support from the ESRC Network for Integrated Behavioural Science – ES/K002201/1.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2020-33496-001.html
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19987

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