We humans have a social memory. We can better remember objects if they have been presented in a social context. If your own aunt proudly shows her new scarf, we can later remember him better than if we had seen him on a scoreboard. Great monks such as chimpanzees and gorillas also have such social memory as biologists have now found out. But surprisingly, this develops much later in life in life than with us.
Primates live in complex social groups. They have profound relationships with each other and learn from other group members. From the earliest childhood, people and monkeys instinctively focus on social stimuli such as faces and gestures. Earlier studies have also provided initial indications that great monards, similar to us could have a social memory, they can better remember objects if they are presented to them in a social context.
Test of the two towers
Researchers led by Marie Padberg from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have now examined the social memory of the great apes. To do this, they carried out a memory test with 42 great apes from various species-chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. The animals were between three months and 47 years old at the time of the examination. Padberg and her colleagues divided the monkeys into two groups. One was shown a video in which a human hand builds a tower, in the other group there was a mechanical gripping arm of the builders.
Two days later, the researchers again showed the great apes the tower already known from the video – in addition to a new, still unknown tower. A long view of the new tower was interpreted as processing and recognizing the familiar tower. The idea behind it: In such a case, the monkeys probably remember the tower from the video and compensate for it with the new building. But how good was that memory of the primates? And did they remember the tower built by human or machine hand?
Man beats machine
The result: “We found out that great apes could better remember a tower when they saw how it was built by one hand instead of a mechanical gripping arm,” explains Padberg. “This is because they paid more attention to the actions of a social being than those of a machine.” In other words, the monkeys examined actually had a social memory – just like we humans.
Surprisingly, however, this was only true for adults. Young animals, on the other hand, did not automatically notice the tower built by human hands better than the mechanically built. Although a better memory for social events is a common feature of primates, only man seems to have this ability from the earliest childhood. But why? After all, children are particularly dependent on learning from their families. “There could be several reasons for this, such as the type of objects, the complexity of the task or the duration of the videos,” explains co-author Daniel Hanus. In the future, follow -up studies could bring more clarity as to why great apes are “late” in terms of social memory.
Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig; Specialist articles: Animal behavior, DOI: 10.1016/J.anbebehaV.2025.123081