Effect of posture on hand preferences during experimental food reaching in bonobos (Pan paniscus).
The effect of posture on hand preferences was examined in an experiment with 5 bonobos (Pan paniscus). To obtain a food reward, the animals had to adopt 1 out of 7 different postures. These postures represented an increasing problem to the maintenance of body equilibrium. It was expected that an increasing demand for equilibrium maintenance would elicit individual preferences and a population-level bias. All animals showed an increasing trend toward left-handedness while shifting to a bipedal posture from a seated posture by way of a quadrupedal posture. The importance of bipedalism in the evolution of left- and right-handedness is discussed briefly.
De Vleeschouwer
K
K
Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Van Elsacker
L
L
Verheyen
R F
RF
D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D009042:Motivation; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000523:psychology*; D004856:Postural Balance; D011187:Posture; D011340:Problem Solving; D011597:Psychomotor Performance