Yamamoto et al

Question 1

What is the Aim of this study?

Answer 1

The aim of this study was to find out more about the helping behavior of chimpanzees specifically if they are able to understand the needs of other conspecifics and if chimpanzees can respond to those needs with targeted helping.

Question 2

What does conspecific mean?

Answer 2

Conspecific means members of the same species and in this study, the conspecific would be other chimpanzees.

Question 3

What is the background of this study?

Answer 3

In order to keep our cooperative societies, humans extensively use helping behaviors. Animals also engage in helping behaviors however, they only help when asked rather than voluntarily helping the other conspecifics. The ability to help others of the same species relies on their understanding of their goals which links to their Theory of Mind ‘ToM’ ability.

An explanation for conspecific animal helping is known as instrumental or targeted helping and it is a cognitive explanation for social behavior. The type of care displayed is based on the cognitive understanding of the need or the situation others are in. Some pieces of evidence suggest that Chimpanzees can engage in instrumental helping following direct requests however only very little Is known about their ability to interpret the needs of conspecifics aka their ToM.

Question 4

What type of experiment was Yamamoto?

Answer 4

It was a laboratory experiment as it took place in an artificial environment where the chimpanzees were seated at adjacent experimental booths.

Question 5

What was the IV of this study?

Answer 5

The ability of the chimpanzee to give targeted helping to another chimpanzee.

Question 6

What were the two conditions in the task?

Answer 6

1. the potential helper was able to see the other’s tool-use situation (can see)
2. They could not see

Question 7

What experimental design was used?

Answer 7

Repeated measures design which means that all the chimpanzees took part in both conditions of the experiment.

Question 8

What was the DV in this study?

Answer 8

The targeted helping behaviour

Question 9

How was the DV operationalised?

Answer 9

It was operationalised as the items offered by the participants to conspecifics. This item was either the correct tool aka stick or straw or incorrect non-tool such as a piece of string.

Question 10

Why was it important to record the behavior of the participants on video camera?

Answer 10

1. it produced quantitative data showing the number of correctly targeted offers per condition
2. it captured the behaviors such as how they moved, responses to gestures, as well as where they were looking while they sat in the experimental booths.

Question 11

What was the sample of the study?

Answer 11

1. 5 chimpanzees
   2.Socially housed
2. within Primate Research Institute in Kyoto University
   Each of them had
3. previously been part of other cognitive and perceptual studies including a similar study investigating helping behavior in a similar setting to this study.

Question 12

(Still in the sample) why would they usually be paired mother and child

Answer 12

Because they had demonstrated frequent tool-giving interactions in previous experiments and were also familiar with the tool-use tasks used in this study.

Question 13

What was the procedure from the steps the chimpanzee had to do in the task to when the experiment began? ( there are other cards on the procedure as well just trying similar question I saw in a past paper)

Answer 13

1. This task was specifically designed to examine the ability and flexibility of chimpanzees to help a conspecific, depending on their need.
2. The chimpanzee had to pick the tool that would help the other chimpanzee solve the problem. A task required a stick and the other a straw. By solving the task, it would allow the second chimpanzee to receive an award which was a juice drink
3. There were 7 objects which included the stick and straw. They were placed in the booth which could not be reached by the potential recipient but could be requested by the poking his or her arm through a hole to gesture.
4. This would help the experimenter see whether the potential helper chimpanzee would be able to understand what the other needs.
5. There was a familiarization phase ,before the trails, each day where they could examine and manipulate the objects without the need to use them or offer them to others.
6. When the experiment began, each chimpanzee experienced the conditions in the same order. First the ‘can see’ condition in which the panel was transparent. Then they moved to the ‘cannot see’ condition where the panel was opaque. And then finally back to the ‘ can see’ condition.

Question 14

Why did the experimenters go from can see, to cannot see and then back to the can see condition?

Answer 14

This was in order to confirm that any differences in object choice between the first two conditions was due to intentional, targeted helping and not an ORDER EFFECT.

Question 15

How many trials were carried out in EACH condition?

Answer 15

48 trials, 24 stick-use and 24 straw-use situations.

Question 16

When did the trials begin?

Answer 16

when the tray of objects was presented

Question 17

When did the trial end?

Answer 17

two scenarios:

1. The recipient received the object and succeeded in obtaining the juice reward.
2. After five minutes had elapsed without an object being passed.

Question 18

How were the offers counted? and which offers were counted and which were not.

Answer 18

when the chimpanzee held out the object to the recipient, whether the recipient took the object or not; Only the first offer of help was counted and any other subsequent offers of any other items were not included in the data.

Question 19

How many trials were conducted per day?

Answer 19

2-4 trials per day

Question 20

What were the results?

Answer 20

Chimpanzees were capable of flexible targeted helping based on an understanding of the conspecific’s goal.

1. In the ‘can see’ condition, objects were offered 91% of trials and it occurred mostly following requests which can be compared to the familiarization trails where offering occurred 5% of trials. Apart from one chimpanzee, all of them first offered tools aka the stick or straw on more occasions than non-tool objects. The bias suggests that they were able to discriminate between potential tools and non-tools. Additionally the chimpanzees selected the correct tool to offer their partner over a significant number of trials which suggests that chimpanzees use targeted helping through understanding the task their partner is being faced with.
2. In the ‘cannot see’ condition, there was a difference in which tool was offered. There was no significant difference in which tool was offered in all but one of the chimpanzees called Ayumu who selected the correct tool more often and was able to stand and peer through the hole in the wall. He did this to view his partner aka his mother and observe the task she is facing.

Question 21

What do the results suggest?

Answer 21

The chimpanzees were only able to understand their partner’s goals when they were able to see the task themselves.

Question 22

Conclusion

Answer 22

They can understand the needs of conspecifics in order to help them solve tasks.

1. they will offer help to conspecifics who require it but usually as a request rather than a voluntary act.
2. Chimpanzees rely on visual confirmation of the conspecific’s needs in order to offer the targeted helping.

Question 23

List three Strengths

Answer 23

1. Due to it being a laboratory experiment, there were high levels of control in the study and a standardized procedure as the objects on the tray stayed the same for each trial and all the chimpanzees sat at the same booths to undergo the trial. Therefore it increases the reliability of the study.
2. The study being a repeated measures design meant that the chimpanzees participated in both or all conditions of the study, therefore, reducing any risk of individual differences and increasing validity.
3. (this point could come after the weakness of low ecological validity)… however, these specific chimpanzees had previously taken part in laboratory studies and are therefore more familiar with the task and materials used in this research so they showed normal behaviour which is a way we could argue that the study was valid.

Question 24

List three Weaknesses

Answer 24

1. This study had low ecological validity because it was conducted in an artificial environment as the chimpanzees were given tasks and tools that they would not normally use in their natural environment…(follow with the strength of validity due to their familiarity)
2. It could be argued that the findings of this study could be a result of an automatic association created by previous experiences. Example: Pan repeatedly offered the brush to her partner in the early trials which might suggest that her previous experiences with similar tasks created a bias in her responses to this study.
3. The participants of this study were only five chimpanzees and all came from the same institute which means that the sample is very small and that is arguably low in generalizability. It would be hard to to say this sample of captive chimpanzees is representative of wild chimpanzees populations though nothing suggests that any of the animals was unique or unusual.