The Role of Past Interactions in Great Apes' Communication About Absent Entities
The Role of Past Interactions in Great Apes' Communication About Absent Entities
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DOI：
10.1037/com0000042
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发表时间：
2016-11-01
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
Tomasello, Michael
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bohn, Manuel;Call, Josep;Tomasello, Michael
最近的证据表明，类人猿可以利用某个实体以前的位置来进行交流。在这项研究中，我们基于这些发现来调查类人猿交流能力的社会认知基础。我们测试了类人猿（n = 35）是否会将其对缺席实体的请求调整为之前与对话者的互动。我们操纵了猿类对对话者关于现在空的位置之前内容的了解的经验，以及他们对对话者提供额外食物的能力的经验。我们发现猿类将它们的要求调整到了这两方面，但未能将它们相互整合。这些结果表明类人猿的交流能力具有惊人的灵活性，同时也表明它们的社交交流技能存在一些重要的局限性。
Recent evidence suggests that great apes can use the former location of an entity to communicate about it. In this study we built on these findings to investigate the social-cognitive foundations of great apes' communicative abilities. We tested whether great apes (n = 35) would adjust their requests for absent entities to previous interactions they had with their interlocutor. We manipulated the apes' experience with respect to the interlocutor's knowledge about the previous content of the now-empty location as well as their experience with the interlocutor's competence to provide additional food items. We found that apes adjusted their requests to both of these aspects but failed to integrate them with one another. These results demonstrate a surprising amount of flexibility in great apes' communicative abilities while at the same time suggesting some important limitations in their social communicative skills.