Principal Investigator:
Karyl B. Swartz
Resident Scientist
Great Ape Trust of Iowa
Professor
Lehman College of CUNY

BASIC MEMORY PROCESSES IN BONOBOS

OVERVIEW

The proposed research extends an existing research program addressing basic memory processes in orangutans (Pongo spp.) and rhesus macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to another Great Ape species, the bonobo (Pan paniscus). The research is based on phenomena from the human memory literature, focusing on the development of organization strategies during list learning. The task currently in use is a modified version of the free recall procedure from the human memory literature. The proposed work will take advantage of the language sophistication of two bonobos with a rich history of lexigram acquisition and a demonstrated understanding of spoken English. Their inclusion will allow a procedure that more closely approximates the verbal free recall paradigm used with humans. Two non-language-sophisticated bonobos will provide species comparisons with orangutans and monkeys, and will allow assessment of the role of language in list organization within the bonobo species. The organizational strategies spontaneously developed by bonobos as they acquire lists will be addressed first. A series of subsequent experiments will investigate encoding process in serial learning to determine (1) the extent to which bonobos will use the order of list items to facilitate encoding, (2) whether subjects encode lists as a unitary whole, (3) short-term memory for item identity and order, (4) the extent to which categorical information facilitates encoding, and (5) whether experience with organizational schemes promotes organization of unrelated items. Another series of studies will address the extent to which linguistic bonobos encode a list verbally. Theories of human memory will be applied to the results of this work to determine the differences between nonverbal and verbal memory with the intention of developing a model of verbal and nonverbal aspects of memory that is guided by and can be applied to human memory and its development.

Performance Sites:
» Great Ape Trust of Iowa Des Moines, Iowa

RELATED PUBLICATIONS
» Culture Prefigures Cognition in Pan/Homo Bonobos
» Cultural Apprenticeship: Social Processes In The Ontogeny of Object Use in Pan paniscus
» Behavioral and Neuroanotomical Asymmetries In Bonobos, Pan paniscus
» Development of Language, Gesture and Play In Bonobos
» Comparative Analysis of Orangutan and Bonobo Numerical Competence
» Basic Memory Processes In Bonobos
» Conversational Vocal Exchanges Among Bonobos
» Multimodal Analysis of Communicative Behavior In Bonobos
» Investigations of Skill Acquisition and Site Formation Processes with Groups of Stone-tool Making Apes
» Music Perception, Learning, and Production In Apes
» Learning and Cognition Same Different Conceptualization and Cross Modal Matching