Chimps might perform difficult tasks better when watched: Study

New Delhi: Chimpanzees perform difficult tasks better when they have a human audience, a new study has suggested.

Researchers from Kyoto University, Japan, said the audience effect -- where one's behaviour changes if they think someone is watching them -- is considered unique to human societies, in which reputation plays a huge role.

While chimps are known to live in a hierarchical society, it wasn't clear to what extent they too might be influenced by those watching them, the researchers said.

They wanted to find out if the audience effect -- which contributes to managing reputations in humans -- might also exist in a non-human primate.

For the study, published in the journal iScience, six chimpanzees were engaged in cognitive tasks involving the control of a computer using a touchscreen over a period of six years and over 2,100 sessions were analysed.

The researchers found that in three different number-based tasks, the chimpanzees performed better on the most difficult task as the audience watching them grew in size. In contrast, they performed the worst on the easiest task when they were being watched by a bigger audience.

"It was very surprising to find that chimpanzees are affected in their task performance by audience members and by human audience members nonetheless," said author Christen Lin of Kyoto University.

"One might not expect a chimp to particularly care if another species is watching them perform a task but the fact that they seem to be affected by human audiences even depending on the difficulty of the task suggests that this relationship is more complex than we would have initially expected," Lin said.

The findings suggested that the audience effect could possibly predate reputation-based human societies, the authors said.

"Our findings suggest that how much humans care about witnesses and audience members may not be quite so specific to our species," said author Shinya Yamamoto, Kyoto University.

The specific mechanisms that form the basis for these audience-related effects remain unclear, even for humans, the researchers said.

They called for more studies on non-human apes which could help understand how this trait evolved and developed.

"These (audience-related) characteristics are a core part of how our societies are largely based on reputation and if chimpanzees also pay special attention towards audience members while they perform their tasks, it stands to reason that these audience-based characteristics could have evolved before reputation-based societies emerged in our great ape lineage," Yamamoto said.