Did you know? A new study carried out by researchers at Kyoto University, Japan, suggests that with a human audience, chimpanzees tend to perform difficult tasks better.
This audience effect, which is when one's behaviour changes when watched, usually plays a big role in human societies where reputation and perception are key factors.
When it comes to chimpanzees, who also live in a hierarchical society, it wasn't clear to what extent being watched might influence them.
For the study, six chimpanzees were chosen for cognitive tasks like the control of a computer using a touchscreen. This was carried out over six years and 2,100 plus sessions were analysed.
In three different number-based tasks, the chimpanzees performed better when watched. Alternatively, their performance was worse during the easiest tasks though they were being watched by an audience.
"It was very surprising to find that chimpanzees are affected in their task performance by audience members and by human audience members nonetheless," said author Christen Lin of Kyoto University, according to a report by PTI.
"One might not expect a chimp to particularly care if another species is watching them perform a task but the fact that they seem to be affected by human audiences even depending on the difficulty of the task suggests that this relationship is more complex than we would have initially expected," Lin said.
"Our findings suggest that how much humans care about witnesses and audience members may not be quite so specific to our species," said author Shinya Yamamoto, Kyoto University.
