Abstract
Recent research suggests that domesticated species – due to artificial selection by humans for specific, preferred behavioral traits – are better than wild animals at responding to visual cues given by humans about the location of hidden food. \\Although this seems to be supported by studies on a range of domesticated (including dogs, goats and horses) and wild (including wolves and chimpanzees) animals, there is also evidence that exposure to humans positively influences the ability of both wild and domesticated animals to follow these same cues. Here, we test the performance of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) on an object choice task that provides them with visual-only cues given by humans about the location of hidden food. Captive elephants are interesting candidates for investigating how both domestication and human exposure may impact cue-following as they represent a non-domesticated species with almost constant human interaction. As a group, the elephants (n = 7) in our study were unable to follow pointing, body orientation or a combination of both as honest signals of food location. They were, however, able to follow vocal commands with which they were already familiar in a novel context, suggesting the elephants are able to follow cues if they are sufficiently salient. Although the elephants’ inability to follow the visual cues provides partial support for the domestication hypothesis, an alternative explanation is that elephants may rely more heavily on other sensory modalities, specifically olfaction and audition. Further research will be needed to rule out this alternative explanation.
Highlights
Humans can interpret visual cues given by other humans (e.g., [1,2,3]) as informative signals [4], a growing body of research suggests that certain other animal species are able to read human-given cues, and that such cue-following may have unique evolutionary underpinnings
Object-choice experiments have been conducted on a number of species using a variety of human-initiated visual cues – including pointing, orienting and gazing – to indicate the location of hidden food
Assessing L/R responses to each condition irrespective of the experimenter resulted in a significant side bias in the point only condition (Point)&Orient (Gh = 40.38, df = 6, P,0.01, Gt = 43.07, d = 7, P,0.01) and Orient (Gh = 42.56, df = 6, P,0.01, Gt = 42.57, d = 7, P,0.01) conditions, but not in the Point condition (Gh = 10.37, df = 6, p = n.s., Gt = 10.38, d = 7, P = n.s.)
Summary
Humans can interpret visual cues given by other humans (e.g., [1,2,3]) as informative signals [4], a growing body of research suggests that certain other animal species are able to read human-given cues, and that such cue-following may have unique evolutionary underpinnings. Object-choice experiments have been conducted on a number of species using a variety of human-initiated visual cues – including pointing, orienting and gazing – to indicate the location of hidden food. Of 12 chimpanzees tested on a gaze and point cue to find hidden food, only three individuals were able to use this information significantly above chance [16]. This variability may be explained through differences in their experience, early rearing experience, with humans [17,18], or through learning or training [19]. Exposure to humans doesn’t necessarily explain all the primate success, as there are a few cases, such as in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) [11] and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) [22] where individuals who were not considered to be enculturated were able to use some human cues to find hidden food
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