Ape Mind Initiative | Research

A significant portion of the funded proposal, CAREER: The Evolution of Cultural Learning will be conducted in the Think Tank and the Ape House of the National Zoo. The research will target a number of questions concerning how apes (Gorillas and Orangutans) learn from others in order to gain insights into the uniqueness of human cultural learning.Some of the questions that will be addressed by Dr. Subiaul, his colleagues and student interns in the National Zoo include: What factors differentiates human and non-human ape imitation? Are species differences in imitation performance best explained by differences in how they copy different types of stimuli (e.g., motor, cognitive, spatial), by memory differences or both? Which of these aspects of the imitation faculty are shared with humans? We hope that answers to these questions will elucidate the nature of imitation and its relationship to human cultural uniqueness.

For more information about specific primate studies, including those that will be conducted as part of the Ape Mind Initiative please see: Primate Research. To see videos of the different tasks that we use to explore different imitation types please see: Primate Videos.