Chimpanzees hone their learning abilities throughout life

The chimpanzees maintain and improve their learning capacity throughout life, according to an observational study carried out for seven years in Tai National Park, Côte d’Ivoire.

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Through 1,460 recordings carried out between 2013 and 2020, the researchers observed how 70 chimpanzees, aged between 1 and 54 years, used different types of sticks to access food.

The analysis of the recordings, whose conclusions are reported today in the journal Plos Biology, shows that chimpanzees improve the use of tools, such as grip or tool movements, as they age.

Their motor skills with sticks become fully functional at age 6, although certain more advanced actions such as adjusting their grip or dexterity in using the stick to extract insects from hard-to-reach places did not fully develop until they reached the age of 6. 15 years.

“This suggests that these skills are not only a matter of physical development, but also of learning capabilities for new technological skills that continue into adulthood,” underlines one of the authors, Mathieu Malherbe, researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences in France. .

According to the authors, this pattern supports the idea that the large brains of hominids allow for continued learning during the first two decades of life.

Source: Elcomercio

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