Science in the Triangle | Duke Ape Research
Can Cooperating Make Us Smarter?
by Becky Oskin
Try this experiment at home: Hide a yummy treat under one of two cups and look or point at the cup concealing the treat. Chances are, your dog will know where you hid the food. With encouragement, he’ll even fetch it for you. So will a toddler. But what about one of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee? Probably not.
Duke University professor Brian Hare wants to know why apes fail versions of this test, which measures social intelligence – in this case, the ability to watch others, figure out what they’re trying to do, and understand what they want you to do.
Hare, who moved to Durham in January, plans to explore this idea by working with Duke neurologists, who study how the brain works, as well as anthropologists, who are experts on human development and evolution. Understanding cooperation (and competition) in apes can help explain how human society evolved, Hare said. “If we find some really important ability for what makes us human, and they don’t share that, then something has changed since we split from our common ancestor,” Hare said.
The chimpanzee line split from humans about six million years ago. This ancestral line spawned bonobos and chimps, separate species, about two million years ago, so humans are equally related to both. Gorillas, orangutans, dogs and foxes have also helped Hare test his ideas about how social intelligence evolved.
Bonobos and chimps live in groups, with daily dramas that rival the most extravagant soap operas. But chimp society is male-dominated, hierarchal, and more aggressive than that of bonobos, who live in relatively peaceful and cooperative female-dominated groups.
Hare has experiments underway at sanctuaries for orphaned chimpanzees and bonobos in Uganda, Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tests Hare designs are voluntary for the animals, and supposed to be fun. “We ask them if they want to play. Everything we do, you can do with children,” he said.
In a study exploring cooperation, Hare presented chimps and bonobos with a simple problem: food on a board that was out of reach. The board had holes threaded with a rope, similar to shoelaces. To bring the board closer, two people must pull on the rope, one at each end. Pulling just one side of the rope slides it out of the holes, making the food unreachable.
Both chimpanzees and bonobos understand what they need to do to solve the problem, Hare said. But only bonobos regularly ace the test. Most chimpanzees can’t work together to get the reward.
“They’re really good at cooperating and communicating, but what they’re not good at is cooperation that requires communication,” Hare said.
However, in some situations, chimpanzees do help one another. In a different experiment, chimpanzees opened a door that allowed a fellow chimp access to some food. They also helped a human stranger grab a stick that was out of reach.
Hare’s studies imply that helpful behavior goes as far back as the common ancestor to chimpanzees and humans. But they also tell us that humans became more like bonobos than chimps in the past six million years. Since then, we’ve learned to cooperate and work together, traits that likely led to language and sophisticated learning skills.
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Becky Oskin is a freelance science writer based in Chapel Hill.
Hare, who moved to Durham in January, plans to explore this idea by working with Duke neurologists, who study how the brain works, as well as anthropologists, who are experts on human development and evolution. Understanding cooperation (and competition) in apes can help explain how human society evolved, Hare said. “If we find some really important ability for what makes us human, and they don’t share that, then something has changed since we split from our common ancestor,” Hare said.
The chimpanzee line split from humans about six million years ago. This ancestral line spawned bonobos and chimps, separate species, about two million years ago, so humans are equally related to both. Gorillas, orangutans, dogs and foxes have also helped Hare test his ideas about how social intelligence evolved.
Bonobos and chimps live in groups, with daily dramas that rival the most extravagant soap operas. But chimp society is male-dominated, hierarchal, and more aggressive than that of bonobos, who live in relatively peaceful and cooperative female-dominated groups.
Hare has experiments underway at sanctuaries for orphaned chimpanzees and bonobos in Uganda, Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tests Hare designs are voluntary for the animals, and supposed to be fun. “We ask them if they want to play. Everything we do, you can do with children,” he said.In a study exploring cooperation, Hare presented chimps and bonobos with a simple problem: food on a board that was out of reach. The board had holes threaded with a rope, similar to shoelaces. To bring the board closer, two people must pull on the rope, one at each end. Pulling just one side of the rope slides it out of the holes, making the food unreachable.
Both chimpanzees and bonobos understand what they need to do to solve the problem, Hare said. But only bonobos regularly ace the test. Most chimpanzees can’t work together to get the reward.
“They’re really good at cooperating and communicating, but what they’re not good at is cooperation that requires communication,” Hare said.
However, in some situations, chimpanzees do help one another. In a different experiment, chimpanzees opened a door that allowed a fellow chimp access to some food. They also helped a human stranger grab a stick that was out of reach.
Hare’s studies imply that helpful behavior goes as far back as the common ancestor to chimpanzees and humans. But they also tell us that humans became more like bonobos than chimps in the past six million years. Since then, we’ve learned to cooperate and work together, traits that likely led to language and sophisticated learning skills.
---------------
Becky Oskin is a freelance science writer based in Chapel Hill.