Social learning research in apes has focused on social learning in the Body technical (problem solving) domain - an approach that confounds action and physical information.Successful subjects in such studies may have been able to perform target actions not as a result of imitation learning but because they had learnt some technical aspect, for example, copying the movements of an apparatus (i.e.
, different forms of emulation learning).Here we present data on action copying by non-enculturated and untrained chimpanzees when physical information is removed from demonstrations.To date, only one such study (on gesture copying in a begging context) has been conducted--with negative results.
Here we have improved this methodology and have also added non-begging test situations (a possible confound of the earlier study).Both familiar and novel actions were used as targets.Prior to Brass Pressure Gauges testing, a trained conspecific demonstrator was rewarded for performing target actions in view of observers.
All but one of the tested chimpanzees already failed to copy familiar actions.When retested with a novel target action, also the previously successful subject failed to copy--and he did so across several contexts.Chimpanzees do not seem to copy novel actions, and only some ever copy familiar ones.
Due to our having tested only non-enculturated and untrained chimpanzees, the performance of our test subjects speak more than most other studies of the general (dis-)ability of chimpanzees to copy actions, and especially novel actions.