Animal cognition
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Comparative Study
Discrimination of functionally appropriate and inappropriate throwing tools by captive tufted capuchins (Cebus apella).
A tool-throwing task was used to test whether capuchin monkeys understand the difference between functionally appropriate and functionally inappropriate tools. A group of monkeys was trained to obtain a sticky treat from a container outside their enclosure using a projectile attached to one end of an anchored line. Subsequently, these monkeys were given choice tests between functional and nonfunctional versions of tools used in training. ⋯ A new set of design features was varied between tools in these choice tests. All participants continued to choose functional tools significantly more often than nonfunctional tools, regardless of their tool-throwing experience or the novel appearance of the tools. These results suggest that capuchin monkeys, like chimpanzees studied in similar experiments, are sensitive to a variety of functionally relevant tool features.