When there’s an audience of observers, a performer’s effectiveness can fluctuate, either improving or declining, as their priority becomes what’s known as reputation management. This refers to actions aimed at creating a positive image for an individual or brand. When a person knows they are being watched, it can subconsciously impact their productivity. Researchers from Kyoto University in Japan have found that chimpanzees experience a similar “audience effect” when completing tasks on computers during laboratory experiments.
What did the scientists discover? During their study, the Japanese researchers conducted tests to determine whether these primates felt the influence of an audience. Over six years, the team analyzed thousands of sessions in which chimpanzees completed tasks on a touchscreen, as reported by the Independent. Ultimately, the researchers found that the primates performed better on the most challenging numerical tasks as the number of observers increased. Interestingly, however, they struggled more with the simplest tasks when more experimenters were watching them.
The exact mechanism behind these effects remains a mystery, even in humans. “It was quite surprising to find that chimpanzees are influenced by the presence of human observers while performing their tasks,” noted study co-author Kristen Lynn. “One wouldn’t expect that chimpanzees would particularly care about whether someone else is watching them while they work; but the fact that they seem to be affected by the presence of people suggests that these interactions are more complex than we initially assumed,” she added.
Co-author Shinya Yamamoto commented on the study’s findings: “Chimpanzees also pay special attention to their audience of observers while completing their tasks.” He believes, “It makes perfect sense that this interaction with an audience could have developed even before communities based on reputation emerged in our lineage of higher primates.” The researchers emphasize the need for further non-invasive experiments with primates to better understand how the “audience effect” evolved and why it exists at all. The results of the study were published in the journal iScience.