Chimpanzees Show Audience Effects in Task Performance

For humans, our performances can improve or worsen when observed by an audience. In a recent report published in the iScience sub-journal of Cell by researchers at Kyoto University in Japan, it was revealed that the performance of chimpanzees completing computer tasks is also influenced by the number of viewers. The findings suggest that this "audience effect" predates reputation-based human societal development.

We naturally pay attention to who is watching us, sometimes subconsciously, impacting how we perform. Researchers sought to determine if the audience effect, typically considered unique to humans, also exists in non-human primates.

While chimpanzees live in hierarchical societies, the extent to which they are influenced by human observation remains unclear. Over six years, researchers analyzed thousands of touchscreen task completions by chimpanzees, leading to significant conclusions.

In three distinct numerical tasks, chimpanzees performed better in the most challenging task, correlating with an increased number of experimenters observing them. Conversely, for the simplest tasks, chimpanzees performed worse when observed by more experimenters or familiar individuals.

The researchers highlight that the specific mechanisms behind these audience-related effects remain unclear, a mystery that persists even in human studies. They suggest that further research on non-human primates could provide insights into the evolutionary processes and reasons behind this trait's development.