Many avenues are open to those who would engage in the study
of behavior. There are different starting points from which one may frame overarching
questions and there exist a wide variety of acceptable methodologies, ranging
from descriptive accounts typified by “ethnographic investigations” to
tightly controlled studies of learning and memory.
A broad array of research projects has been designed to significantly
strengthen the integration of work at Great Ape Trust of Iowa into that of the
larger scientific community. These efforts will involve an international field
of prominent scholars and a colony of eight bonobos (Pan paniscus) at
Great Ape Trust.
The suite of skills addressed by these projects includes language, tool use,
music, handedness, lateralization of facial expression and speech, counting,
economic exchange, abstract thought, categorical memory, vocal speech, complex
conversational processes and the role of apprenticeship in the cultural transmission
of knowledge. |
