Recognition of visual kinship signals in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) by humans (Homo sapiens)
Abstract
Associating with kin provides individual benefits but requires that these relationships be detectable. In humans, facial phenotype matching might help assess paternity; however, evidence for it is mixed. In chimpanzees, concealing visual cues of paternity may be beneficial due to their promiscuous mating system and the considerable risk of infanticide by males. On the other hand, detecting kin can also aid chimpanzees in avoiding inbreeding and in forming alliances that improve kin-mediated fitness. Although previous studies assessing relatedness based on facial resemblance in chimpanzees exist, they used images of captive populations in whom selection pressures and reproductive opportunities are controlled and only assessed maternity or paternity of adult offspring. In natural populations, the chances of infanticide are highest during early infancy, suggesting that young infants would benefit most from paternity concealment, whereas adults and subadults would benefit from the detection of all types of kin, including half-siblings. In our experiment, we conducted an online study with human participants, in which they had to assess the relatedness of chimpanzees based on facial similarity. To address previous methodological constraints, we used chimpanzee images across all ages, as well as maternal and paternal half-siblings. We found that kin status was detected above chance across all relatedness categories, with easier kin detection of father-offspring pairs, females, and older chimpanzees. Together, these findings support the existence of paternity confusion in infant chimpanzees and provide a possible mechanism for incest avoidance and kin-based social alliances in older individuals.
Citation
Péter , H , Laporte , M , Newton-fisher , N E , Reynolds , V , Samuni , L , Soldati , A , Vigilant , L , Villioth , J , Graham , K E , Zuberbühler , K & Hobaiter , C 2022 , ' Recognition of visual kinship signals in chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) by humans ( Homo sapiens ) ' , Journal of Comparative Psychology , vol. Advance online publication . https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000327
Publication
Journal of Comparative Psychology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0735-7036Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2022 American Psychological Association. his 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/com0000327
Description
Authors thank the Royal Zoological Society Scotland for the core funding they provide to the Budongo Conservation Field Station.Collections
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