Field: Psychology › Social PsychologyType: No effect foundArea: primate cognitionTarget: Action imitation in chimpanzeesStage: full study
Hypothesis
Untrained chimpanzees that watched a rewarded chimpanzee perform an action would copy it, even with no object or apparatus to learn from.
What failed
All but one chimpanzee failed to copy familiar actions. When tested with a new action, the one successful chimpanzee also failed to copy it, in several contexts.
Broken assumption
Chimpanzees naturally imitate the actions of other chimpanzees.
Why
Earlier positive studies may have shown chimpanzees learning how objects move rather than copying actions. Without that physical information, they did not imitate.
From the published paper: Tennie et al. PLoS ONE, 2012. ↗CC BY