Chimpanzees communicate to coordinate a cultural practice

Author / Creator

Cultural Evolution Society 2021 (2021)

Conferences

Cultural Evolution Society 2021 Q&A session 11: Non-human culture 1 (2021)

Available as

Online

Summary

Human culture is considered to be different from animal culture due to its communicative and interactive nature built on shared intentionality and cognitive flexibility. Here, we investigated wheth...

Human culture is considered to be different from animal culture due to its communicative and interactive nature built on shared intentionality and cognitive flexibility. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees use communication and show behavioral indications of their joint commitment to engage in cultural practices by analyzing grooming handclasp (GHC) interactions - a socio-cultural behavior for which coordination is required. In a GHC two apes engage in a joint action leading to a symmetrical postural configuration in which each of the partners extends an arm overhead and clasps the other's wrist or hand. Previous accounts attributed the enactment of GHC to behavioral shaping whereby the initiator physically molds the arm of the partner into the GHC posture. Using frame-by-frame analysis and matched-control methodology, we find that chimpanzees use gestural communication to entice group members into GHC. The use of communication instead of physical shaping to initiate GHC requires an active and highly synchronized response from the partner, which showcases a behavioral expression of joint commitment to engage in this shared cultural practice. Moreover, we show that GHC initiators used a variety of initiation strategies, which attests to their situation-contingent interactional flexibility. We conclude that chimpanzees can be jointly committed to a cultural practice, which suggests that culture predicated on shared intentionality and flexible communication may not be unique to the human species.

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