The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

September  08, 2004 EDT
Study: Chimps Recognize Aping
By Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20040906/chimp.html
Sept. 8, 2004 - Next time you start imitating chimpanzees at the zoo, 
be aware that they know what you're doing.

Australian researcher Mark Nielsen and colleagues at the University 
of Queensland report they have the first evidence that animals other 
than humans can recognize when they're being imitated.

The research is published online ahead of print publication in the 
journal Animal Cognition.

The researchers set up a series of videotaped experiments where one 
researcher, Emma Collier-Baker, imitated a friendly 31-year old male 
chimp called Cassie.

The researchers looked for behavior normally seen in human children 
when they know someone is imitating them.

This includes repeating the imitator's movements and running 
sequences of actions, as if testing whether the imitator is indeed 
following.

The team found that Cassie repeated movements and performed "testing" 
sequences of actions. These included poking his finger out of the 
cage, nodding his head, raising his arm, hitting the ground and 
wiping his nose.

But the researchers had to make sure that Cassie wasn't doing the 
actions for some other reason. So they set up a number of control 
experiments.

In the first experiment, Collier-Baker moved at the same time as 
Cassie but didn't do the same actions as him; in the second, 
Collier-Baker moved randomly, regardless of when Cassie moved; and in 
the last one, she did not move at all.

It was only when Collier-Baker actually imitated Cassie, performing 
the same actions at the same time, that the chimp performed the 
repetitions and testing sequences.

"It just adds more evidence showing that there are more commonalities 
between us and our closest living relatives than there are 
differences," Nielsen said. "We share a lot of behaviors with them."

Ian Johnston, who researches animal learning at the University of 
Sydney, was impressed.

"I think it's a really cool study. It's really well controlled."

Johnston said previous studies had shown that chimps can acquire 
language skills, check themselves out in mirrors, learn from each 
other, and from humans.

"But this is the first time I'm aware of that they've actually 
recognized that a human is imitating them," he said.