TY - JOUR

T1 - The role of past interactions in great apes' communication about absent entities

AU - Bohn, Manuel

AU - Call, Josep

AU - Tomasello, Michael

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2016 American Psychological Association.

PY - 2016/11/1

Y1 - 2016/11/1

N2 - Recent evidence suggests that great apes can use the former location of an entity to communicate about it. In this study we built on these findings to investigate the social-cognitive foundations of great apes' communicative abilities. We tested whether great apes (n = 35) would adjust their requests for absent entities to previous interactions they had with their interlocutor. We manipulated the apes' experience with respect to the interlocutor's knowledge about the previous content of the now-empty location as well as their experience with the interlocutor's competence to provide additional food items. We found that apes adjusted their requests to both of these aspects but failed to integrate them with one another. These results demonstrate a surprising amount of flexibility in great apes' communicative abilities while at the same time suggesting some important limitations in their social communicative skills.

AB - Recent evidence suggests that great apes can use the former location of an entity to communicate about it. In this study we built on these findings to investigate the social-cognitive foundations of great apes' communicative abilities. We tested whether great apes (n = 35) would adjust their requests for absent entities to previous interactions they had with their interlocutor. We manipulated the apes' experience with respect to the interlocutor's knowledge about the previous content of the now-empty location as well as their experience with the interlocutor's competence to provide additional food items. We found that apes adjusted their requests to both of these aspects but failed to integrate them with one another. These results demonstrate a surprising amount of flexibility in great apes' communicative abilities while at the same time suggesting some important limitations in their social communicative skills.

KW - Psychology

KW - Common ground

KW - Communication

KW - Displacement

KW - Great apes

KW - Social cognition

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84989183162&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1037/com0000042

DO - 10.1037/com0000042

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 27690504

AN - SCOPUS:84989183162

VL - 130

SP - 351

EP - 357

JO - Journal of Comparative Psychology

JF - Journal of Comparative Psychology

SN - 0735-7036

IS - 4

ER -