Juvenile experience and learning events in humans modulate the functional maturation of the brain, thereby shaping the neuronal substrate for the development of intellectual and socio-emotional abilities. Animal models have provided useful testable conceptual and comparative frameworks applicable to studies of human infants and vice versa. Scaffolding behavior and opportunity teaching are important processes in the development of language and technical skill acquisition in young children. The proposed study will explore the function of opportunity teaching and maternal or parental scaffolding and the influence of social dynamics on complex skill acquisition and behavioral performance in sub-adults in two species of primates: 1) captive cotton-top tamarins on a simulated naturalistic foraging task and 2) wild chimpanzees on a hazardous tool use task. In addition, to shed light on the evolution of social learning in human and non-human primates, associated costs to social learning will be investigated in relation to behavioral efficiency and environmental variability. In the chimpanzees, video data will be gathered from the wild and a semi-controlled natural outdoor laboratory setting; while, data on the tamarins will be obtained through a series of experiments with control and baseline trials in captivity. ? ?
| Dillis, Christopher; Humle, Tatyana; Snowdon, Charles T (2010) Socially biased learning among adult cottontop tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Am J Primatol 72:287-95 |
| Biro, Dora; Humle, Tatyana; Koops, Kathelijne et al. (2010) Chimpanzee mothers at Bossou, Guinea carry the mummified remains of their dead infants. Curr Biol 20:R351-2 |
| Humle, Tatyana; Snowdon, Charles T; Matsuzawa, Tetsuro (2009) Social influences on ant-dipping acquisition in the wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) of Bossou, Guinea, West Africa. Anim Cogn 12 Suppl 1:S37-48 |
| Humle, Tatyana; Matsuzawa, Tetsuro (2009) Laterality in hand use across four tool-use behaviors among the wild chimpanzees of Bossou, Guinea, West Africa. Am J Primatol 71:40-8 |
