Gorillas’ (Gorilla gorilla) use of experimenter-given manual and facial cues in an object-choice task

Abstract

Several experiments have been performed to examine the great apes' use of experimenter-given manual and visual cues in object-choice tasks. Considering their use of referential gestures in gaze-following paradigms, great apes perform surprisingly unsuccessfully in object-choice tasks. However, the large majority of object-choice experiments have been conducted with chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with very few experiments including other great ape species, making it difficult to generalize about the great apes. Interestingly, the only object-choice task conducted with gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) has indicated successful use of both manual and visual cues. It was the aim of the present study to gather more data on gorillas' use of human manual and facial cues on the object-choice task. Gorilla subjects in this study did not show consistent use of three types of referential cues.