Bonobos tend to behave optimistically after hearing laughter.

Area of Science:

• Primate cognition
• Animal behavior
• Affective science

Background:

• Emotions significantly influence cognitive functions like memory and decision-making.
• Research on animal emotions has predominantly focused on negative emotions like fear.
• Positive emotions and their cognitive impacts in non-human animals remain less explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if positive affect vocalizations in bonobos lead to expectations of positive future outcomes.
• To assess the impact of conspecific laughter on bonobo decision-making using a cognitive bias task.

Main Methods:

• A cognitive bias test was employed with four bonobos.
• Subjects were trained to differentiate between rewarded and unrewarded stimuli.
• Ambiguous stimuli were presented after priming with bonobo laughter.

Main Results:

• Bonobos were more likely to approach ambiguous stimuli following exposure to laughter.
• This suggests that laughter primes positive emotional states and biases decision-making towards positive expectations.
• The findings indicate that laughter influences foraging and search behaviors in bonobos.

Conclusions:

• Hearing laughter induces positive emotions and biases decision-making in bonobos.
• This highlights a shared role of positive emotion in behavior and cognition across species.
• Contagious play vocalizations in other animals may also signal positive outcomes, suggesting evolutionary commonalities.