TMatsuzawa

Personal

Bio

Tetsuro Matsuzawa is Professor and Director, Primate  Research Institute of Kyoto University, Japan.  He has been studying chimpanzee intelligence both in the laboratory and in the wild.  The laboratory work, known as "Ai-project", focusing on the language-like skills and the concept of numbers established in a female chimpanzee named Ai. Chimpanzee Ai, 24 year old at present, has a 1 year-old boy named "Ayumu". They live in the PRI community of 14 chimpanzees as a group including 3 generations of 0 to 37 year old. Ai project started in 1978, and one of the longest laboratory research on chimpanzee intelligence.  Matsuzawa has also been studying the tool use in the wild chimpanzees at Bossou, Guinea, West Africa, since 1986. There is a community of about 20 individuals that has been studied for 25 years by Japanese researchers. The Bossou chimpanzees are well known to use a pair of stone as hammer and anvil to crack open oil-palm nuts. His long-term research on wild chimpanzee tool use revealed interesting topics like handedness of use of hammer, critical period of learning nut-cracking at around 3 to 5 year old, "education by master-apprenticeship " and observational learning, possession  of stones, deception, new tool use like algae-scooping, use of leaves for cushions, cultural variation in adjacent communities, etc. Matsuzawa tries to synthesize the field work and the laboratory simulation to understand the nature of chimpanzees, our evolutionary neighbors.  He got several prizes including Prince Chichibu meomorial science award in 1991.  He published many books and articles including the following ones.

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http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/koudou-shinkei/shikou/staff/matsuzaw/index.html

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