TY - JOUR

T1 - Information seeking about tool properties in great apes

AU - Bohn, Manuel

AU - Allritz, Matthias

AU - Call, Josep

AU - Völter, Christoph J.

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank O. Fischer, G. Philippsen, V. Roggenkamp and K. Wenig for their help during data collection, M. Harrer for reliability coding, C. Zickert for preparing Fig. 1 and especially the animal caretakers of the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center for their help during testing. M.B. was supported by a scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation. J.C. was supported by the “SOMICS” ERC-Synergy grant (nr. 609819). Publisher Copyright: © 2017 The Author(s).

PY - 2017/12/1

Y1 - 2017/12/1

N2 - Evidence suggests that great apes engage in metacognitive information seeking for food items. To support the claim that a domain-general cognitive process underlies ape metacognition one needs to show that selective information seeking extends to non-food items. In this study, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) either had to determine the location of a desired food item or a property of a non-food item (length of a tool). We manipulated whether subjects received prior information about the item's location or property. During the test, subjects had the opportunity to seek the respective information. Results show that apes engaged in more information seeking when they had no prior knowledge. Importantly, this selective pattern of information seeking applied to food as well as to tools.

AB - Evidence suggests that great apes engage in metacognitive information seeking for food items. To support the claim that a domain-general cognitive process underlies ape metacognition one needs to show that selective information seeking extends to non-food items. In this study, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) either had to determine the location of a desired food item or a property of a non-food item (length of a tool). We manipulated whether subjects received prior information about the item's location or property. During the test, subjects had the opportunity to seek the respective information. Results show that apes engaged in more information seeking when they had no prior knowledge. Importantly, this selective pattern of information seeking applied to food as well as to tools.

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028916753&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-017-11400-z

DO - 10.1038/s41598-017-11400-z

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 28883523

AN - SCOPUS:85028916753

VL - 7

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

M1 - 10923

ER -