Genes Play An Important Role In Shaping Chimp Intelligence

A new study has found that genetic factors play a significant role in determining the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees. By combining cognitive performance tests with genetic analysis, researchers from Georgia State University discovered that some, but not all, cognitive traits were heritable in chimpanzees. In other words, like in humans, cognitive abilities could be passed from parents to offspring. The study has been published in Current Biology.

The role of genetics in determining human intelligence was a matter of long-standing debate in the past. While it is known that intelligence can be modified by social and environmental factors such as education and socioeconomic status, it is also abundantly clear that it is heritable, i.e. can be passed from parent to child.

Our understanding of how genes vs environmental factors can shape cognition in non-human animals, particularly nonhuman primates, has been significantly less clear. For many years it was believed that the latter was largely responsible for cognitive traits, but few studies actually investigated the roles of genetics.

In order to fill in gaps in this poorly understood area, researchers set out to examine whether cognitive performance is heritable in chimpanzees. 99 chimps between the ages of 9- 54 were presented with 13 different tasks designed to test various cognitive abilities. They then combined this data with genetic analyses to see whether the degree of relatedness between the chimps was linked to task performance.

The researchers discovered that some, but not all, cognitive traits could be inherited in chimpanzees. This is in contrast to earlier ideas that environmental factors and experience largely determine task performance. “In our case, at least, it suggests that purely environmental explanations don’t really seem to tell the whole story,” lead author William Hopkins said in a news-release. “Genes matter as well.”

Furthermore, the observed abilities across this large range of tasks seemed to suggest that chimpanzee intelligence is reminiscent of the structure of human intelligence, Hopkins added.

While much more research needs to be carried out in this field, the study certainly provides a foundation for further, more detailed studies. The researchers would therefore like to continue this work by looking at larger samples and investigating which particular genes are involved in determining cognitive abilities in chimpanzees. 

Read more: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/genes-play-important-role-shaping-chimp-intelligence

Genes Play An Important Role In Shaping Chimp Intelligence

chimpanzees, cognition

Chimpanzees use hand gestures to locate food

Many humans use elaborate hand gestures in order to supplement their verbal communications. New research has found that chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, are capable of gesturing to one another to indicate the presence of food. The research was led by Anna Ilona Roberts of the University of Chester and was published in the journal Nature Communications. 

Two chimpanzees, a female named Panzee and a male named Sherman, are trained in language. They were tested on their ability to communicate the location of food while working with a human researcher. Food was hidden from the human in a large, outdoor space while the chimps saw where it was placed. The chimps helped guide the researcher toward the food by pointing to its location. 

Because the testing area was so large, the chimps had to direct the human over 10 meters away to the food. This gave them a great deal of freedom in how they were able to communicate the hidden food’s location. The chimps pointed to where the food was, and the closer the human got to the secret location, they began to gesture more frequently. Panzee also made more elaborate gestures in response to the human pointing toward the correct location of hidden food.

This experiment was quite unique in the size of the testing area and the freedom the chimps were given in deciding how to communicate to the human. The researchers believe that the success of this study has important implications in the evolution of language. Gesturing, like what was demonstrated by the chimpanzees, combines the need to communicate information with motor coordination, which likely played a role in forming early language. 

Read more: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/chimpanzees-use-hand-gestures-locate-food

Chimpanzees use hand gestures to locate food

chimpanzees, communication