Abstract
The ability to comprehend purely informative (declarative) communications has been put forward by several researchers as a possible biological distinction between humans and our nearest evolutionary relatives, the great apes. Most studies that purport to show that great apes cannot comprehend declaratives utilize the object choice task as a basis of measurement and have relatively few subjects. Here we report on a large-scale study of chimpanzees and bonobos as well as a meta-analysis of earlier studies. The data from this large pool of subjects suggest that environmental and methodological differences greatly affect the ability of great apes on the object choice task. Therefore, it is unlikely that an adaptation for declarative comprehension drove the evolution of human language.
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