When humans connect the thumb and forefinger into a circle to form an 'O,' while holding the other fingers relaxed or straight, most of us will understand it to mean "okay." The same is true for a curtsy, a flying kiss, or a thumbs up. A new study now claims primates are no different as also make use of gestures to communicate and cooperate with each other as they search for food.
Experts from the Language Research Center of Georgia State University experimented with how primates will coordinate the task of finding hidden food. The researchers worked with two chimpanzees, named Sherman and Panzee, that are language trained and set up an experiment where the primates will have to operate in an outdoor area and guide the experimenter to the hidden food.
The proponents termed the drill as "chimpanzee-as-director" and at the end of the study, they established the most convincing evidence that primates use gestures to understand each other to achieve a certain goal. During the experiment, the chimpanzees utilized pointing well to guide the experimenter where to go and to point the location of the hidden food. Panzee was able to elaborate her gestures with the gestures of the experimenter and found the hidden food item more effectively.
"The use of gestures to coordinate joint activities such as finding food may have been an important building block in the evolution of language," said Dr. Anna Roberts from the University of Chester and one of the authors of the study.
"It allows the chimpanzees to communicate information in the manner of their choosing, but also requires them to initiate and to persist in communication.The chimpanzees used gestures to recruit the assistance of an otherwise uninformed person and to direct the person to hidden objects 10 or more meters away. Because of the openness of this paradigm, the findings illustrate the high level of intentionality chimpanzees are capable of, including their use of directional gestures. This study adds to our understanding of how well chimpanzees can remember and communicate about their environment," explained research scientist Dr. Charles Menzel of the GSU Language Research Center.
The proponents also pointed out the observed flexibility and complexity in the gestures used by the captive chimps during the experiment.
The results of the study titled "Chimpanzees Modify Intentional Gestures to Co-ordinate a Search for Hidden Food" appears on the journal "Nature Communications."
