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Target animacy influences chimpanzee handedness

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 12:05 authored by Gillian S Forrester, Caterina Quaresmini, David LeavensDavid Leavens, Caterina Spiezio, Giorgio Vallortigara
We employed a bottom-up, quantitative method to investigate the origins of great ape handedness. Our previous investigation of gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) demonstrated that contextual information influenced an individual’s handedness towards target objects. Specifically, we found a significant right-hand bias for unimanual actions directed towards inanimate target objects but not for actions directed to animate target objects (Forrester et al. 2011). Using the identical methodological technique, we investigated the spontaneous hand actions of nine captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) during naturalistic, spontaneous behavior. We assessed both the frequencies and proportions of lateralized hand actions directed towards animate and inanimate targets employing focal follow video sampling. Like the gorillas, the chimpanzees demonstrated a right-handed bias for actions directed towards inanimate targets, but not towards animate targets. This pattern was evident at the group level and for the majority of subjects at the individual level. We postulate that a right hand bias for only inanimate targets reflects the left hemisphere’s dominant neural processing capabilities for objects that have functional properties (inanimate objects). We further speculate that a population-level right hand bias is not a human-unique characteristic, but one that was inherited from a common human-ape ancestor.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Animal Cognition

ISSN

1435-9448

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Issue

6

Volume

15

Page range

1121-1127

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Notes

Online First version

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-07-30

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