8: Imitation

Do chimpanzees learn by imitation? If they do, do they imitate behaviours they see with a learned knowledge of the outcome? It's a controversial issue and difficult to test, but scientists are becoming better at looking and controlling for imitative behaviour in controlled experiments.

The next film shows a researcher performing a simple act watched by a chimpanzee.

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Dr. Malinda Carpenter, Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.