Poster #200 - Toddlers and great apes are motivated to approach after watching a video in joint attention

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

Contrary to great apes, humans engage in a variety of social bonding activities that rely on sharing experiences, such as playing games or dancing. Successful engagement in such activities requires joint attention, a referential triangle in which two individuals realize they both know they are attending the same stimulus. Research on adults has shown that even minimal shared experiences such as watching something together establish feelings of closeness between individuals. Yet, the question remains how fundamental and uniquely human the capacity to connect with others through joint attention is. Does this mechanism emerge early in ontogeny? And can we find a similar mechanism in other species as well?

To answer these questions, we conducted a series of experiments with 18 and 30 month olds (between subjects) and great apes (within subjects). In the children’s’ study participants watched a video either together with an experimenter or while the experimenter sat next to them reading a book. After the video, the experimenter sat down on the other side of the room and offered a stuffed animal (0-30 seconds), toy truck with blocks (30-60 seconds) or a marble run (60-90 seconds) to the child. We measured the time it took children to approach the experimenter and found that 30 month olds (but not 18 month olds) approached faster after having watched the video together with the experimenter. However, two different variations of this procedure highlighted the moderating role of social feedback during the manipulation.

In our first great ape study, chimpanzees and bonobos at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany engaged in a procedure similar to that of the child study. To make sure the apes were watching the video and had seen the experimenter, we also collected eye tracking data during the manipulation. After the manipulation the experimenter went to the other side of the enclosure and looked at the participant (0-30 seconds), rattled the mesh (30-60 seconds) and rattled the mesh while calling the participant’s name (60-90 seconds). To our surprise, we found that chimpanzees and bonobos also approached faster after having watched the video together with the experimenter.

To make sure these results were not specific to the group of apes at the Leipzig Zoo (who have extensive experience interacting with humans during behavioral experiments) we set out to replicate the effect in a group of chimpanzees living in a sanctuary, using a procedure in which apes watched a video together with conspecifics. We found that the apes spent more time in the same part of the room after having watched the video together.

These results suggest that (1) connecting through shared experiences is a social dynamic that emerges early in ontogeny and (2) this dynamic also seems to be present in great apes. Although it remains unclear how similar these processes in humans and great apes really are, these studies shed a new light on the way through which humans start forming their social networks early in development, and how these processes might have developed over our evolutionary history.

Authors

• Wouter Wolf, Duke University
  Presenting Author

• Michael Tomasello, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author