Principal Investigator:
Patricia M. Greenfield
Professor of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Co-Investigator:
Christine M. Johnson
Lecturer
University of California, San Diego

Co-Investigator:
E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
Lead Scientist
Great Ape Trust of Iowa

Consultant:
Maya Gratier
University of Paris

Consultant:
Heidi Lyn
Research Scientist
Wildlife Conservation Society’s
New York Aquarium

CULTURAL APPRENTICESHIP: SOCIAL PROCESSES IN THE ONTOGENY OF OBJECT USE IN PAN PANISCUS

OVERVIEW

This investigation of cultural apprenticeship in two species of Pan will focus on social processes in the ontogeny of object use. Through the micro-analysis of videotaped interactions, we will assess the roles of scaffolding and imitation in different cultural contexts. These contexts vary from intensive, long-term inter-species (Homo-Pan) relationships, to ones in which zoo-living apes have had mainly intra-species interactions. Through detailed quantitative and qualitative descriptions of how affect, attention, and action are brought into social coordination, we aim to identify the relevant communicative media, the changing sensori-motor constraints, the distribution of effort across co-participants, the role of motivation, and the level of skill convergence attained in these apprenticeships. In particular, we will begin by analyzing interactions between infant bonobos and their human and/or bonobo caretakers, tracking hands, gaze, and emotional expression as they become coordinated into co-action, imitation, gaze-following and social referencing. We will then examine the roles these skills play in the ontogeny of tool use – including flint knapping, music making, and drawing – and compare how both developmental histories and differences in scaffolding effect novice performance. We will also examine, across generations, how the processes of apprenticeship evolve, describing transformations of teaching and learning techniques – including imitation, innovation and social enforcement – seeking clues to the mechanisms that maintain tradition and underlie cultural change. We will pay special attention to the impact of language on tool apprenticeship, and explore the extent to which language-trained apes make use of symbolic cues in apprenticing others. Finally, we will test the hypothesis that the development of object use reflects a “grammar of action,” similar to proto-grammar in language, in which combinatorial activity occurs with increasing hierarchial complexity. In this way, we hope to better understand the evolutionary origins of, and developmental constraints on, the mediation of social learning.

Performance Sites:
» Great Ape Trust of Iowa Des Moines, Iowa
» Great Ape Research Institute Okayama, Japan
» San Diego Zoo San Diego, CA
» Department of Psychology, UCLA Los Angeles, CA
» Department of Cognitive Science, UCSD La Jolla, CA

RELATED PROGRAMS
» Culture Prefigures Cognition in Pan/Homo Bonobos
» Cultural Apprenticeship: Social Processes In The Ontogeny of Object Use in Pan paniscus
» Behavioral and Neuroanotomical Asymmetries In Bonobos, Pan paniscus
» Development of Language, Gesture and Play In Bonobos
» Comparative Analysis of Orangutan and Bonobo Numerical Competence
» Basic Memory Processes In Bonobos
» Conversational Vocal Exchanges Among Bonobos
» Multimodal Analysis of Communicative Behavior In Bonobos
» Investigations of Skill Acquisition and Site Formation Processes with Groups of Stone-tool Making Apes
» Music Perception, Learning, and Production In Apes
» Learning and Cognition Same Different Conceptualization and Cross Modal Matching