Chimpanzees Pass On Knowledge To The Next Generation, Study Finds

Chimps are found to transfer the knowledge to their next generation according to the behavioral experiment study of the apes. This chimpanzees behavior was discovered by a team of researchers when they study a group of chimps.

Human is not the only species to have the learning culture. Researchers from many institutions have found the unique chimpanzees behavior to pass on their knowledge to the younger generation. The researchers have published their research in the Evolution and Human Behavior.

According to the finding, the chimpanzees' behavior showed their ability to modify their conduct and improve it. The lead author of the research is Gillian Vale, Ph.D. from the University of Texas, with co-authors Susan P. Lambeth and three researchers from the University of St. Andrews Sarah Davis, Steven Schapiro and Andrew Whiten.

The report is a follow-up of last year's report, published in the Nature Research Journal. The five of them analyzed 19 chimps and divided them into five groups. They analyze the chimpanzees' behavior to develop their habit in the social environment.

In their latest report, they found that two groups of chimpanzees, consist of three chimps exhibited the learning ability when given the challenge of a certain task using complex tools. The chimpanzees' behavior showed that they constantly improved their approach to the task with the complex tools. A further experiment to five individual chimpanzees, that has no social interactions with other chimps, showed they were incapable of doing a similar task.

This explained that chimpanzees behavior is able to form a cumulative culture with the ability of cultural ratcheting. The chimps that are trained to do the tasks are able to teach other that do not know how to do it. While five individual chimpanzees also show the improvement by experimenting how to use the complex tools.

The latest research has found the unique chimpanzees' behavior to pass on the knowledge is able to facilitate social learning, and encourage the chimps to discover more complex learning. Their behavior also shows that chimps are able to improve through social and asocial learning.