Chimpanzees Thrive Under Watchful Eyes During Tough Tasks
- Research at Kyoto University indicated that chimpanzees better perform difficult tasks when observed by more individuals.
- The study spanned six years and involved six chimpanzees completing touchscreen tasks under varied audience sizes.
- These findings suggest that the audience effect might be more common among species, not just exclusive to humans.
A recent study conducted at Kyoto University revealed that chimpanzees exhibit improved performance on challenging tasks when observed by an audience. Over six years, researchers analyzed thousands of video sessions featuring six chimpanzees engaging in touchscreen tasks at the Centre for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behaviour. The findings showed that as the number of observers increased, the chimps excelled in more difficult tasks but struggled with simpler ones under the same conditions. This phenomenon suggests that chimpanzee behavior may mirror the audience effect seen in humans, where minds behave differently when being watched. Researchers are still investigating the motivations behind these behaviors, which may influence perceptions of reward and cognitive focus. More exploration is needed to understand how these audience-related characteristics might have evolved in great apes, indicating a complex relationship between social observation and task performance.