Study finds chimpanzees perform better with human audience

A study published in iScience on November 8 shows that chimpanzees showed better performance in challenging computer-based tasks when watched by humans. Research conducted at Kyoto University observed chimpanzees performing number-based tasks on a touchscreen while being monitored under different viewing conditions. It was found that as the number of human observers increased, their performance also increased with the difficulty of the task. However, for simple tasks, chimpanzees performed worse in the presence of a large audience, pointing to a subtle relationship between observation and performance.

A unique setting for chimpanzee-human contact

Researchers including Kristen Lin of Kyoto University explored whether chimpanzees experience the “audience effect”, which is commonly attributed to reputation management in humans. The study, led by Shinya Yamamoto and Akiho Muramatsu, focused on chimpanzees accustomed to daily interactions with humans and familiar with touchscreen tasks for food rewards. Given the animals’ comfortable coexistence with humans, researchers had the opportunity to investigate whether bystander dynamics could affect their task performance, as it does in humans.

Complex effects of human observation

During thousands of sessions spanning six years, chimpanzees’ task performance was measured across a variety of task difficulties. The study revealed a specific improvement in complex tasks when viewed by a largely human audience, while simpler tasks showed a decline in accuracy under similar conditions. Researchers found this surprising, as it indicates a level of social awareness previously thought to be more exclusive to humans.

Implications for understanding social dynamics in primates

The findings suggest that the effects of being observed, even by another species, may not be unique to humans. As Yamamoto noted, audience effects on performance in non-human primates provide valuable insight into the social behaviors that may have shaped early primate societies, long before human reputation-based systems emerged. Further study may help understand the evolutionary basis of this social trait in great apes.