title: Coordination strategies of chimpanzees and human children in a Stag Hunt game.
abstract: Much of human cooperation takes place in mutualistic contexts in which the main challenge for individuals is how to coordinate decisions. In the current studies, we compared the abilities of chimpanzees and young children to coordinate with a partner in two versions of a Stag Hunt game. When risks were low (the hare was of low value) and information was cheap (the partner's behaviour was readily observable), partners of both species were able to successfully coordinate on the higher value stag more than 90% of the time. By contrast, when the risks were raised and observing the partner was more difficult, the chimpanzees became less successful, whereas the children compensated, and so remained highly successful, by communicating more often and more specifically. This pattern of results is consistent with the hypothesis that humans evolved unique skills of coordination and communication in the context of especially risky coordination problems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany shona_duguid@eva.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Shona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duguid
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wyman
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Anke F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Bullinger
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Herfurth-Majstorovic
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomasello
mesh_terms: D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Stag Hunt; children; chimpanzees; communication; coordination