Chimpanzees are known to show objects to their mothers for sharing's sake, which was thought to be unique to humans.
The footage of the Chimpanzees encouraging her mother to look at a leaf was captured by the researchers. The discovery suggests that wild Chimpanzees can use gestures to communicate with each other in certain social conditions.
In the first year of life, humans begin to use referential gestures to show or point out things to others, but until now primate have never been seen doing this.
According to the lead author of the study, people love sharing experiences with each other, and even in our first year of life we start to show others interesting things.
Sharing for sharing's sake is thought to be a uniquely human trait, but our observation of these wild Chimpanzees challenges this. An adult chimp showed her mother a leaf she had been grooming, not because she wanted her to do anything with the leaf, but because she wanted her to look at the leaf.
The observations suggest that Chimpanzees may show each other objects of interest, to share attention about them, and that this behavior may not be unique to humans.
There is video evidence of an adult female chimp showing a leaf to her mother.
They looked at more than 80 similar events and found no alternative explanations for the behavior.
The researchers want to see if they can observe other chimp's showing and sharing behavior.
The researchers say the discovery could have implications for our understanding of what makes humans unique.
The observations show that sharing attention for sharing's sake is not unique to humans. It has been argued that our ability to share experiences helped us to evolve our cognitive abilities that set us apart from other species.
New questions about why humans share experiences more often than our closest living relatives and whether engaging in this behavior at a higher frequency than other species can still explain the evolution of cognitive functions underpinning human social behavior have been raised.
The research is in a journal.
There is more information about Declarative referential gesturing in a wild Chimpanzees. The DOI is 10.1073/pnas.2206486118.
Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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