About This Project

In humans, cognitive abilities are acquired during development and are influenced by the specific socio-cultural environment children are raised in. To what extent ontogeny and different experiences change cognition in our closest living relatives - the great apes - is still largely unknown. During this project we will examine how various captive upbringing conditions – including contact with humans – affect cognitive skills both within and across the great ape species.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

This project will assess how rearing conditions alter cognitive skills within each great ape species (chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos and gorillas). Because our knowledge on cognitive abilities of apes mostly are conducted in captive conditions, we need to understand what particular influences captivity and human exposure have on cognitive development. At first, we will perform a pilot study that compare the physical and social cognitive skills between individuals who are raised by their own mother to those who have been hand nursed by humans and thus experienced intense human socio-emotional contact. We will collect data on curiosity, reactions to humans and problem-solving skills of all ape species in various zoological gardens in Europe.

What is the significance of this project?

Early experiences are vital for shaping cognitive abilities in humans. Developmental effects on cognition in apes on the other hand remain largely unstudied. Therefore we will examine intraspecific variation in relation to rearing conditions and the effect of early experiences. Thus, the proposed project fills a need for comprehensive studies of individual variation in cognitive traits that can be related to rearing histories and the underlying psychological motivational variables, such as attention structure, curiosity and exploration. In particular this research project promises insights on whether developmental conditions and social experiences, similarly like in humans, also construct cognition in our closest living relatives - the great apes.

What are the goals of the project?

Our goal to evaluate the relationship between specific rearing- and background histories and performance in cognitive tasks will be achieved through a set of tests measuring: innovativeness, tool-use, inhibition and memory. Zoos and sanctuaries provide us with excellent opportunity to test our aim: apes raised in captivity differ largely in their experiences. Some apes have been hand nursed by humans, others are wild born but brought to captivity as infants and many are raised by their own mother. Additionally we will test the motivational states of each ape, their social orientation (both conspecifics and humans) and their curiosity. Ultimately we will then be able to link rearing and early experiences to their motivational characteristics which may lead to higher cognitive skills.