Bonobos tend to behave optimistically after hearing laughter

Abstract

Emotions mediate a wide range of cognitive functions, including memory, attention, and decision making. Studies of emotion in non-human animals have typically focused on negative emotions—like fear—that have clear behavioral correlates (e.g., freezing or retreating). To address this one-sided treatment of affect, we used a cognitive bias test to ask whether vocalizations associated with positive affect lead apes to expect positive future outcomes. All great apes produce laughter-like vocalizations during play that likely evolved from a shared ancestral form of laughter. We primed bonobos with conspecific laughter and then asked whether they were more likely to treat an ambiguous stimulus as if it were positive. Subjects ( n = 4) were first trained to approach rewarded (black) stimuli and skip unrewarded (white) stimuli. We then presented occasional ambiguous (grey) stimuli. Bonobos approached ambiguous stimuli to search for rewards more often after hearing laughter. Our results suggest that hearing laughter induces positive emotions and may thus bias bonobos’ decision making, including foraging or search behavior. While only apes produce human-like laughter, several other non-human animals have contagious play vocalizations. These vocalizations may lead other animals to anticipate positive outcomes, revealing commonalities in the role of positive emotion in behavior and cognition across species.