MANUAL ACTION IN INFANT CHIMPANZEES - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY

In human infants, index finger extension is shown frequently even from 3 months old, and it is considered that such pointing develops into d eictic and communicative pointing; however, there are many reports tha t chimpanzees do not point with the index finger. In the present study the manual actions of two infant chimpanzees were observed when the e xperimenter was trying to make eye contact with them. The result shows that pointing was shown very rarely by these infant chimpanzees even morphologically.