As chimpanzees habitats are generally large, in connection with unpredictability of food sources, primates need to remember food sources to forage efficiently. After discovering the fruit in one tree, this tree becomes an indicator for the presence of fruit in other trees of the same species, what is called "inspect all strategy". As captive chimpanzees are also able to employ different social learning mechanisms, both simple and cognitive complex processes, the question appeared whether or not ARTIS chimpanzees can learn to make use of fruiting synchrony and understand the connection between a visual cue shown by the caretakers, to present the 'current tree species in season' and understanding this 'seasonal' order in which fruits are presented. After running a model for each food type at the location per individual, we came to the conclusions that only the juvenile maile (Ajani) showed in the first test phase indications for the use of spatial memory, by visiting the banana locations on banana day. Results also showed partially use of temporal memory, chimpanzees appeared to remember what kind of fruit was presented one day before. We can furthermore, conclude that food preference plays an important role in cognitive learning in a captive placement. Despite our finding that Artis chimpanzees might need a longer period of time for learning experience and exposure with discovering a food source in a certain location, we can confirm that motivation and competition for finding an artificial trees/bags with food were an important variables in this study.
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