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The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Duguid, S; Wyman, E; Grueneisen, S; Tomasello, M
Published in: Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983)
May 2020

One of the challenges of collaboration is to coordinate decisions with others, and recent theories have proposed that humans, in particular, evolved skills to address this challenge. To test this hypothesis, we compared the coordination abilities of 4-year-old children and chimpanzees with a simple coordination problem. To retrieve a reward from a "puzzle box," pairs of individuals were simply required to choose the same 1 of 4 options. If successful, they each received the same reward, so there were no conflicts of interest. Individuals were paired with multiple partners over time. Both species were able to coordinate, but there were marked differences in the way they did so. Children were able to coordinate quickly and flexibly, adjusting easily to new partners, suggesting an understanding of the coordination process. In contrast, chimpanzees took time to converge on a single solution with each new partner, with no gains across partners, suggesting that their coordination was based only on repeating successful past choices. Together, these results support the hypothesis that humans have evolved unique skills for coordinating decisions and actions with others in the pursuit of common interests. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

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Published In

Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983)

DOI

EISSN

1939-2087

ISSN

0735-7036

Publication Date

May 2020

Related Subject Headings

  • Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5202 Biological psychology
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
 

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Duguid, S., Wyman, E., Grueneisen, S., & Tomasello, M. (2020). The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem. Journal of Comparative Psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983). https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000220
Duguid, Shona, Emily Wyman, Sebastian Grueneisen, and Michael Tomasello. “The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem.Journal of Comparative Psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983), May 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000220.
Duguid S, Wyman E, Grueneisen S, Tomasello M. The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem. Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, DC : 1983). 2020 May;
Duguid, Shona, et al. “The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem.Journal of Comparative Psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983), May 2020. Epmc, doi:10.1037/com0000220.
Duguid S, Wyman E, Grueneisen S, Tomasello M. The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination problem. Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, DC : 1983). 2020 May;

Published In

Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983)

DOI

EISSN

1939-2087

ISSN

0735-7036

Publication Date

May 2020

Related Subject Headings

  • Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5202 Biological psychology
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology