Computerized drawing, sorting, and fingermaze tasks for chimpanzees

Iver H. Iversen

University of North Florida, USA

Two adult, captive chimpanzees were trained to move a finger over the surface of a touch-sensitive monitor. This movement was used in a variety of tasks to asses the development of perceptual-motor skills and spatial navigation.

Drawing: First, the subjects learned to move a finger while it maintained contact with the screen. Training began with pressing individual aligned dots that gradually were brought closer to each other; eventually a continuous movement emerged that swept across the dots. Once the finger movement was established, the task consisted of drawing a line that connects two points or tracing a line. Once line tracing was established, several lines were presented to form geometrical figures and letters of the alphabet. Both subjects can very accurately trace a variety of multi-line figures.

Sorting: First the subjects were taught to move one small object from one location to another on the screen by simply placing a finger on the object; as the finger moved to the new location, the object followed the finger movement. Next, several objects (colored geometrical figures) were to be brought onto two or more “plates”‚ on the screen to form categories. Both subjects learned to sort a variety of objects and colors in two or more categories.

Fingermaze: The subjects have to move a small object to a goal while avoiding obstacles on the screen. The obstacles form a maze with several blind alleys, and the screen looks just like a fingermaze. Training progressed from very simple mazes with just one obstacle to very complex mazes with several blind alleys. Both subjects learned to solve the presented mazes. One subject spontaneously memorized the goal location in several mazes; she can solve familiar mazes where the goal location has been removed. The experiments illustrate how chimpanzees can be taught complex perceptual-motor skills customarily seen only in human subjects.

Iversen, I. H., & Matsuzawa, T. (1996). Visually guided drawing in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Japanese Psychological Research, 38, 126-135.

Iversen, I. H., & Matsuzawa, T. (1997). Model-guided line drawing in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Japanese Psychological Research, 39, 154-181.

Iversen, Iver H.

Department of Psychology, University of North Florida

Jacksonville, Florida 32224, USA

iiversen@unf.edu