Abstract
Recent evidence has shown that humans are remarkably sensitive to artificial cues of conspecific observation when making decisions with potential social consequences. Whether similar effects are found in other great apes has not yet been investigated. We carried out two experiments in which individual chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, took items of food from an array in the presence of either an image of a large conspecific face or a scrambled control image. In experiment 1 we compared three versions of the face image varying in size and the amount of the face displayed. In experiment 2 we compared a fourth variant of the image with more prominent coloured eyes displayed closer to the focal chimpanzee. The chimpanzees did not look at the face images significantly more than at the control images in either experiment. Although there were trends for some individuals in each experiment to be slower to take high-value food items in the face conditions, these were not consistent or robust. We suggest that the extreme human sensitivity to cues of potential conspecific observation may not be shared with chimpanzees.
Highlights
Recent evidence has shown that humans are remarkably sensitive to artificial cues of conspecific observation when making decisions with potential social consequences
We suggest that the extreme human sensitivity to cues of potential conspecific observation may not be shared with chimpanzees
A number of recent studies have shown that humans are remarkably sensitive to cues of conspecific observation when making decisions with potential social consequences
Summary
Recent evidence has shown that humans are remarkably sensitive to artificial cues of conspecific observation when making decisions with potential social consequences. When images of ‘watching eyes’ are displayed, people are more reluctant to take an available resource for themselves (Burnham 2003; Haley & Fessler 2005; Burnham & Hare 2007; Rigdon et al 2009; Oda et al 2011; Nettle et al 2012a; see Fehr & Schneider 2010) They are less likely to take from others (Baillon et al 2013), and more likely to donate their own resources to a charitable cause, at least under some conditions (Ekström 2011; Powell et al 2012). Subordinate chimpanzees are sensitive to whether a dominant can see a particular food item in their choice of whether to take it or not
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