Scientists at the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Germany recently discovered that, like humans, chimpanzees bond when they watch movies together, the BBC reports .
In the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B , researchers stationed pairs of chimpanzees in front of screens that showed a video of a family of chimps playing with a young chimp. They found that afterward, the chimps would spend more time grooming and interacting with each otherâor simply being in the same part of the roomâthan they would without having watched the video.
They gave the chimps fruit juice to keep them calm and occupied while they viewed the video, and they chose a subject that chimps have previously proven to be most interested in: other chimps. They also used eye trackers to ensure the chimps were actually watching the video. If youâve ever watched a movie with friends, you might notice similarities between the chimpsâ experience and your own. Drinks (and snacks) also keep us calm and occupied while we watch, and we like to watch movies about other humans. Since this study only showed that chimps bond over programs about their own species, we donât know if it would work the same way if they watched something completely unrelated to them, like humans doâsay, The Lion King .
Bonding through shared experiences was thought to be one of the traits that make us uniquely human, and some researchers have argued that other species donât have the psychological mechanisms to realize that theyâre even sharing an experience with another. This study suggests that social activities for apes donât just serve utilitarian purposes like traveling together for safety, and that theyâre capable of a more human-like social closeness.
The part that is uniquely human about this study is the fact that they were studying the effect of a screen, as opposed to something less man-made. The chimps in question have participated in other studies, so they may be more accustomed to that technology than wild apes. But the study demonstrates that weâre not the only species capable of social interaction for the sake of social interaction.
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