title: Effect of posture on hand preferences during experimental food reaching in bonobos (Pan paniscus).
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: De Vleeschouwer
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Van Elsacker
authors.forename: R F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Verheyen
mesh_terms: 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