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				Chimp Minds Part 1 - Fishing...For Ketchup Young male and female chimps learn in different ways, as Alan sees when he observes them fishing for ketchup in the zoo the way they use sticks in the wild to fish for termites.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: ALDA: It's 9:30 in the morning and time forank to lead the way into his handsome new domain at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. All seven chimpanzees, including three youngsters, have only recently come here from their previous home in Florida. There's plenty for them to do in their new environment, which has both indoor and outdoor space. But after a leisurely stroll to pick up the apples and carrots just tossed here by the keepers, several of the chimps head over to one corner, where there's a realistic- looking termite mound. In the wild, chimpanzees often fish in mounds like this with sticks, hoping to snare a tasty termite snack, and fishing in the holes in the artificial mound has quickly become a popular sport with the Lincoln Park chimps... unless they're distracted by early morning visitors. So you can see that, from this side, the holes are not obvious as to where they are. It looks very much like a natural termite mound. So initially, when they were learning this, they had to figure out which of these depressions were actually holes. ALDA: Elizabeth Lonsdorf has spent many hours watching chimpanzees fishing for termites, mostly in the place the phenomenon was first recorded, by Jane Goodall, some 40 years ago. Goodall's now legendary observations of chimpanzee behavior at Gombe National Park in Tanzania had not gotten off to a good beginning. The chimps were proving elusive. GOODALL: I couldn't get near them, until one never-to-be-forgotten day I was walking through long wet grass after a very frustrating morning, and through the vegetation I saw this dark shape squatting on this golden-colored termite mound. I was peering and peering, and I saw... he had his back to me-- he was picking pieces of grass and clearly poking them at the termite... I just couldn't quite see and I didn't dare move-- and he's obviously picking something off. And I saw him reach out and pick a twig and strip the leaves, and that was so exciting because we used to think we were the only creatures on the planet who used and made tools. ALDA: Since Jane Goodall first noticedchimps fishing for termites, they've been seen using tools for other things-- cracking open nuts, for example. What's more, different communities of chimps use different tools for different purposes, so while one group hammers at nuts to crack them, another doesn't. Some groups fish in termite mounds while chimps in other communities ignore them. So chimps not only use tools like humans, they also, like humans, have behavioral traditions, passed down from generation to generation. By 1998, when Elizabeth Lonsdorf first went to Africa to study chimpanzees, this notion that they have behavioral traditions akin to human cultures had become widely accepted. LONSDORF: So that in itself just fascinated me, and I said, "Okay, I want to do something about that." And where that led me was really trying to understand how these cultures are maintained in a community, how are they passed on. ALDA: Elizabeth began what was to become a three-year study of a group of chimpanzees in Gombe, including a pair of infant twins as they learned termite fishing from their mother. LONSDORF: This is their mother, Gremlin. And you can see a little white tail tuft there? That's a little chimp behind. Oh, yeah, mm-hmm. So there's two babies on her belly thatare just nursing. This is their first real interaction with tools and the mound, and they kind of just reach out if a tool'sin front of them. I see her hand grabbing on. Yeah, reaching to Mom's mouth, those types of things. And actually, at this stage, they could actually be bit by a termite, and if Mom, you know, drops one on their head, they'll... they'll get bit by a termite. This is the twins the following year, and you can see they're off their mom's belly, they're much more alert, and then this is when they start to reallykind of bug her and they're really intent on learning this. And notice... it's important that she is not teaching them, she's not helping out in any way, she's actually kind of annoyed that there's a little... little critter on her head. And the youngster's stealing termiteoff of her arm, kind of getting in the way, watching very closely. So I think most things about this are learnedin some way. ALDA: Learned, but not taught. Through all her hours of watching youngsters picking up the art of termite fishing, Elizabeth never once saw the moms do any actual teaching, an important difference from most human cultures, which invest a lot of effort in passing on learned skills from one generation to the next. LONSDORF: This is the twinswith their older sister, and you can see they're really starting to bug her now and... and really intent on learning this skill. ALDA: Look, they're reallywatching carefully now. This is typical type of social interaction you'll see on the termite mounds in the wild, and also here at our termite mound. There's a lot of wrestling over tools and... But she already knows that the stick is associated with eating the termites. She may. She may also just think... They'll want to suck on the stick? "My sister has something cool she's playing with. I might want to play with it." But here it looks like she knows that thatstick is important for some reason to get inside this mound. ALDA: The most strikingof Elizabeth's observations was that males learned very differently from females. LONSDORF: Here's a nice exampleof a male. He kind of, you know, fusses with the mound, is interested, but then he'd much rather go off and play. He's going to go bug other individuals, he's stomping, wanting to get into a play boutwith somebody. His... he steals his mom's tool there, so that's being pretty disruptive. And just to placate him, she'll tickle him a little bit-- that's a tickle. Uh-huh. So she plays with him just enough to kind of get him to go away. Yeah. But he's running around the mound wreaking havocessentially. ALDA: It was a whole year later thatthis young male called Fudge finally decided to settle down and focus. LONSDORF: Now, when he's almost,you know, 3 1/2 is when he's being as attentive as the twinswere at 1 1/2. So that's the sex difference-- girls are really paying attention really early on, boys not until about two years later. ALDA: This is another3 1/2-year-old male, Samson. LONSDORF: He's tryingto make a tool. This is the first time I saw him tryingto make a tool. And... he's... he's kind of doing it okay-- he makes something very short, but then he swipes the surface of the mound. So he's gotten that he needs the mound,he needs a tool, he hasn't gotten the hole part yet. He doesn't know about the hole. He just brushes it across. He just brushes it across and magically expects termites to appear, and they don't, and then he gives up. ALDA: And this is Titan, another male, who finally gets it at age 5 1/2. LONSDORF: And you can see, he'sfishing quite successfully. Important to note-- he's 5 1/2. Females can do this at 3 1/2. So that's kind of the main... one of the main conclusions we have from our study: females learn it up to two years earlier; once they learn it, they're actually better at it. We measured the number of termites that they got out per dip. Yeah, yeah. So females were getting more termites out per dip. And then also females tended to mimic theirmother's technique. Males completely did their own thing and they all preferred short tools. Short tools are easier to get in because you have to, you know, progressively thread it down there; they're also, though, less successful at it. You get less termites out or you have a higher failure rate when you use a short tool. What, males are just inherently dumber? I don't get that. I think it's kind of a path of least resistance. ALDA: Exploring this male/female difference was one reason Elizabeth now watches the Lincoln Park Zoo chimps from both outside and inside their termite mound... which doesn't actually contain termites at all, but tubes of mustard or ketchup-- low-calorie treats that are easier for the keepers to handle than termites. The mound is baited every other day at random times, so the chimps aren't ever quite sure if it's worth a visit or not... unless they hear the keepers underneath. LONSDORF: So they just baited it. And you can see Chuckie, our young female here, is the one going to the top. She's one of the better termite fishers. She's got a nice... pretty nice tool there. WOMAN: Oh, I saw her sticking a stick into the mound. There she goes. She's testing-- I don't think that one's full yet, because the keepers are underneath right now. There she goes. See? She's got some. Yeah, she got some. ( chuckling ): So, in between, when she walked away a little bit there, the keeper got that tube on. ALDA: The mound was first baited about two months ago. When we first baited the termite mound the very first day, one of the young males was the first to kind of realize that there was food in there. He walked by the mound and kind of attended to it and sniffed, and he could smell something different. Then he walked right up to the mound, put his nose in a hole, sniffed, you know, big sniff-- "Okay there's something in there." Then he stuck his tongue down the hole. Then he tried to actually bite the mound itself, like the mounds might all of a sudden be made out of cotton candy or something. And then he did get a small tool made out of hay here, or a small twig, and drop it... and tried to put it in, but he dropped it and he lost it. And at that point, he gave up and walked away. ALDA: Today, that same young male, Optimus, still seems not to have quite figured out the appropriate size for a tool and soon reacts in characteristically male fashion. Meanwhile, Chuckie, the young female, puts on a virtuoso display. LONSDORF: Now, this is an individual who often gets forced off the mound when she's being really successful, and also the chimps will often take her tool. She tends to make really good tools-- the other chimps will take them. And she just kind of throws up her hands and gets something else, because she's a little girl-- there's nothing she can do about it. Now, it's the difference in their kind of skill level that's interesting. As you can see, our alpha male is nowhere near the mound, he's over there. Now, what is that? He doesn't like to associate with the girls or what is it? No, I just think he's not interested in doing a task that's really hard to get a treat. He... he would rather just hang out. ALDA: Now it's time to do a little repairing of the male ego. Male chimpanzees may have very good reasons in the wild for their poor study habits and clumsy fishing skills, and that's because while the female chimpanzees are quietly fishing for termites, male chimps are often off noisily hunting for monkeys. Monkey meat is an important protein source for males, which they rarely share with the females. So for a young male, rough-and- tumble play is more important than practicing his fine motor skills... ( chimps screeching ) while for a female, extra protein comes from a deft touch while termite fishing. Back at our ketchup mound, almost everyone except the alpha male is settled in, even including Optimus, who finally has a tool that works... only to have it promptly stolen. LONSDORF: This individual that just took his tool is Cashew, who's an adult female, and her son is next to her, swiping her ketchup from her. So he is not yet really into fishing on his own. He would rather Mom do the work and he gets to steal. But notice, she is not offering it to him. She doesn't, you know, really seem to want him to have it, but he's just in a good place to get it from her. Behind them on the mound is Nana. She's a young female; she doesn't have kids yet. She's quite a good termite fisher. She does it very often and she was the one that first, after we baited, was the first one to get food out. ALDA: So it was Nana who was the founding genius of the Lincoln Park cultural tradition of mustard and ketchup fishing. She also has a liking for Chuckie's tools. Since Nana's breakthrough discovery, all the females have become accomplished fishers. And Chuckie, as she always does, patiently sets about making a new tool. LONSDORF: What she might do is try and break off that nice thin piece, which is a perfect tool. Instead of those big, strong branches, she pulled off the really thin piece. That's a perfect tool for this behavior. ALDA: But while Kipper goes on swiping ketchup from his mother, the ever-resourceful Chuckie has already decided she needs a new supply of tools, perhaps to insure against future thefts. LONSDORF: Oh, she's got a bunch of them. So you see a lot of opportunities for learning all around the mound. They can watch or steal from another individual, like Kipper is there with his mom. You can do a lot of testing out of different tools. And you can see how maybe teaching isn't necessary. I mean, maybe you pick it up... you pick up enough from watching; it's really not worth any effort of doing any active demonstration. ALDA: While watching her chimps in the wild, Elizabeth always wished she could see inside the termite mounds. Now she can, and she plans one day to make the tubes inside bend and twist like real termite holes to see how the chimps figure them out. LONSDORF: One of the things we might do, instead of making the tube more difficult first, is make the substance they're getting out more difficult. So imagine mealworms instead of ketchup. Imagine putting them in there. That's not going to be as easy to get out as ketchup, because they're going to get knocked off the tool. They're going to not stick as easily maybe. Mealworms... Yeah. We just can't do termites... I'm so glad we split off from their ancestors. We can't do termites, because our pest- control people... ALDA: Elizabeth Lonsdorf has found intriguing parallels between how chimps and humans learn, with the boy-girl differences especially striking a chord in anyone who has raised the human kind. But the fact that chimps don't teach also highlights a crucial difference between us and them, and may be one of the reasons why human cultures are so dynamic, while among chimpanzees little changes from generation to generation. This aspect of studying chimpanzees interests me because I think it really brings apes and animal behavior alive for people. They realize that there's these fascinating differences, then they become more concerned. Well, what if these chimps that termite-fish go away? Then we've lost that culture, then it's gone. So it's a really nice way to draw conservation into studying animal behavior, too, because as you lose communities, you lose some of these things that may be quite unique to that community. ALDA: In the new primate center at the Lincoln Park Zoo, the termite mound is almost as strong a draw for the public as it is for the chimpanzees. LONSDORF: So... do you want to try it? Oh! I can't wait. ( laughs ) How do I...? I'm not going in there with them, am I? No, no, no, no, no. ALDA: Chuckie was the expert, so I'm copying her. It goes deeper. It does? Yeah, that's one of our hard ones. You mean, I might not actually be smarter than a chimp? They've had more practice. Yeah, right. Thanks. It's all about practice. Thanks for trying to make me feel better. Wait, maybe I have the wrong end. Maybe come at it from the front. There you go. Oh, wow, it goes all the way down. It's a hard one. It's kind of a down-and-up one. Yeah, but I needed my mom to tell me how to do it. ( both laughing )

				Chimp Minds Part 2 - Chimp See, Chimp Do Psychologists study chimpanzees that grew up with human contact to see how well they can generalize concepts and to try to figure out the way they put together their mental picture of how the world works.
		Select text to jump ahead in the clip: ALDA: The chimps we've seen so far were raised with little contact with humans. But the chimps at this chimpanzee sanctuary in Florida are different. Okay, Grub. Grubby. ALDA: The six animals here made cute pets or performers as infants. Then they became big, strong and unwanted. Around the nation, there are now several sanctuaries like this, where discarded chimps can live the social and active lives their minds deserve. But their presence here provides an opportunity for a psychologist from Florida Atlantic University, David Bjorkland. BJORKLAND: These chimpanzees in particular have a different rearing history than wild chimpanzees. One fascinating thing about them is, from early on, the ones I'm working with, anyway, have had significant human interaction-- in many cases, treated much like human children. ALDA: And like human children, they get plenty of toys to play with, though nine-year-old Grub seems a bit baffled by a stick and plastic washboard. Watch what I do. Watch. ( scratching board loudly ) Doesn't that sound pretty? ALDA: But then he's shown what they can do. I'll do it again. Watch. ALDA: Grub is clearly fascinated. Watch. ALDA: And after a wait of ten minutes to allow the demonstration to evaporate from his short-term memory, he's given the washboard again. And this time... ( stick scratching board ) Now comes the real test. Grub is given four new objects. First the experimenters check to see if Grub may have come across things like this before. Well, he's interested, but he doesn't seem to have any ideas about what they may be used for. Ready? Watch this. ( cymbals clang ) ALDA: Grub is very attentive as usual. Watching? Here I go. ( clanging ) ALDA: Ten minutes later, he's given back only the trowels. Right away he gets it. He saw the cymbals and now he's generalized it to the trowels. Very different shape, different handle. He's really very happy about it, too. We think that that shows he has not just learned a specific behavior, but he's generalized... he's learned a concept. He's generalized the concept. ALDA: David Bjorkland believes that, at least in chimps raised in human society, this ability to generalize a concept suggests a more sophisticated way of learning than simply direct imitation. Bjorkland's team has also tested whether chimpanzees have a concept in their minds of how the world works, including the basic notion that inanimate things are fundamentally different from living or once-living things. Here's a stuffed hawk being used as sandpaper-- an animate object being used as an inanimate one. Time. ALDA: Will four-year-old Noelle find this more intriguing, odder, than the plastic hammer? ( hammer banging ) She's given a choice as to which to investigate further... and it's the hawk as sandpaper. Next up, a rock treated as a pet... What a pretty rock. Beautiful. Look at that. ALDA: Versus a rock as a rock. Again, Noelle can choose which one she finds the more interesting. And sure enough, it's the rock as pet. So far, Noelle's choices could be explained if she just likes anything animate-- either the object itself or its treatment. But now for the first time she's facing some animateness on both sides: blackbird pet versus blackbird screwdriver. BJORKLAND: Time. ALDA: But she still gets it. Blackbird screwdriver was the weird one. So far it's a solid worldview. Now comes the toughest challenge. ALDA: Inanimate log treated like an animate pet... What a nice log. ALDA: ...up against a powerful combination: animate duck treated like an animate object. That's a kind of double dose of animateness. What are you doing in there? What were you doing in that bucket, you silly mallard? ALDA: And it's too attractive for the young chimp. The pet log should have violated her expectations-- as psychologists say-- but she missed it. BJORKLAND: But you did see earlier when there was the blackbirds, one being treated like a screwdriver and one being treated like a pet, she went with the one being treated like a screwdriver. So there's a little bit of going-for-the-violation- of-expectation Noelle, but when push comes to shove, if she has a choice between an animate object, no matter how it's treated, she tends to go towards that. ALDA: Human three-year-olds also fail this test. But now let's see how nine-year-old Grub does with the identical series of tests. First, hawk sandpaper... against hammer. BJORKLAND: Time. MAN: Okay, go look. ALDA: No problem. But as with Noelle, this was the only animate element in the trial. There you are... ALDA: Next, pet rock against rock rock. ALDA: Again no problem. But again, this was the only choice with any animate element to it in the way it was treated. Now animate blackbird treated animately against screwdriver blackbird. It's a tougher choice, but like three-year-old Noelle he still picks out the one that's peculiar. Go look. ALDA: Finally the big test. The doubly attractive mallard treated animately against the log treated animately. How pretty you are. Yes... ALDA: This is the one Noelle failed. ...a beautiful log you are. ALDA: And unlike the younger Noelle, Grub gets it, as would a nine-year-old human. All the chimps we've seen in this show give us a fascinating glimpse into what human and chimp minds share and into how, in the last six or seven million years, they've grown apart.