• Question: what amazing things have you found out about monkeys or apes and what do you intend to discover in the future?

    Asked by to Lewis on 13 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Lewis Dean

      Lewis Dean answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      The main project that I did from 2007 to 2010 (during my research for my PhD) looked at how and why humans (children) can solve more complicated puzzles, but chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys (and other primates) can’t. We already knew that there was a difference, but we wanted to work out why there was a difference. Lots of people had an idea about why there was a difference, but no one had tested those ideas. So that’s what we did.

      Our research showed humans did better at these puzzles because we share more, teach one another and use language. When we had done the research we wrote it up and it was published in a magazine called ‘Science’. Science is read by a lot of people (well, a lot of scientists), so we got lots of questions and comments about the work. It really felt like we had made a difference (in a small way!).

      In the future I intend to continue to look at how humans and other apes are different.

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