Scientists at the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Germany recently discovered that , like humans , chimpanzees bring together when they check movies together , the BBCreports .

In the study , publishedinProceedings of the Royal Society B , researchers stationed pairs of chimp in front of screens that showed a video of a home of Pan troglodytes playing with a young chimp . They found that afterward , the chimps would drop more clip grooming and interact with each other — or but being in the same part of the room — than they would without having watched the video .

They gave the chimps yield succus to keep them tranquil and occupied while they view the video , and they chose a subject that chimps have antecedently testify to be most concerned in : other chimpanzee . They also used eye trackers to ensure the chimps were actually watching the video . If you ’ve ever watched a movie with admirer , you might notice similarities between the chimps ’ experience and your own . beverage ( and collation ) also keep us calm and occupied while we watch , and we care to watch pic about other humans . Since this study only showed that chimps bail over programs about their own species , we do n’t sleep with if it would work the same way if they watched something entirely unrelated to them , like humans do — say , The Lion King .

Windzepher/iStock via Getty Images

stick to through shared experiences was cerebrate to be one of the traits that make us uniquely human , and some investigator have contend that other species do n’t have the psychological mechanisms to gain that they ’re even portion out an experience with another . This field of study propose that societal activeness for apes do n’t just attend utilitarian function like trip together for condom , and that they ’re capable of a more human - like social closeness .

The part that is unambiguously human about this subject is the fact that they were canvass the burden of a silver screen , as oppose to something less man - made . The chimps in interrogative have participated in other study , so they may be more accustomed to that technology than wild apes . But the study attest that we ’re not the only species capable of social interaction for the saki of social interaction .

[ h / tBBC ]