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Behavioral Assessment of Manual Dexterity in Non-Human Primates
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Published on: November 11, 2011

Can nonhuman primates use tokens to represent and sum quantities?

Theodore A Evans1, Michael J Beran, Elsa Addessi

  • 1Language Research Center, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010, USA.theodore.evans@gmail.com

Journal of Comparative Psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983)
|September 15, 2010
PubMed
Summary

Nonhuman primates like chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys can learn token values but struggle to flexibly combine them for quantity judgments. Most individuals did not show this capacity, highlighting the importance of task methodology.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Ethology
  • Comparative Psychology
  • Animal Cognition

Background:

  • Previous research on nonhuman animal quantity representation yielded mixed results.
  • Discrepancies may stem from varied methodologies in token-based tasks.
  • Understanding flexible quantity representation is key to cognitive evolution.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the capacity of chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys to flexibly combine token values for quantity judgments.
  • To reconcile conflicting findings from previous primate quantity studies.
  • To explore the role of methodology in primate cognitive tasks.

Main Methods:

  • Two token tasks were designed for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella).
  • Tasks involved associating individual tokens with quantities and summing multiple token values.
  • Performance was assessed on comparing tokens and making quantity judgments based on summed values.

Main Results:

  • Both species successfully learned individual token-quantity associations.
  • Individuals could compare tokens and visible food items.
  • Only a minority of individuals demonstrated the ability to sum multiple token values for optimal responses.

Conclusions:

  • Flexible combination of symbolic stimuli for quantity judgments is present in some chimpanzees and capuchins, but not widespread.
  • Methodological factors significantly influence performance in these cognitive tasks.
  • Further research should focus on refining methods to better assess primate quantitative abilities.