Cooperative interactions vary in complexity. The emotional reactivity hypothesis posits that cooperative complexity is constrained by social intolerance. Relaxed social constraints should thereby increase cooperative flexibility and have been proposed as a key step in cognitive evolution. Lions (Panthera leo) are an ideal candidate for investigating cooperative complexity and tolerance. Lions regularly cooperate and their egalitarian social structure predicts high social tolerance. I used a food-sharing task and cooperative problem-solving task to investigate tolerance and cooperation in lions. The majority of pairs (N = 5/7 dyads) solved the cooperative task, repeated success in consecutive trials, and demonstrated cooperative complexity at the levels of similarity and synchrony. Surprisingly, lions showed no evidence of coordination. If coordination occurred, then after gaining experience and when no longer naïve to the need for a partner, lions should increase the proportion of time spent together and preferentially attended to the task in the presence of a partner. However, naïve and experienced pairs did not differ (Wilcoxon matched-pair signed-rank test: both present at apparatus: S₄ = − 4.5, N = 5, p = 0.50 |both touching the rope: S₄ = − 3.5, N = 5, p = 0.43| simultaneous action: S₄ = 2.5, N = 5, p = 0.63). As predicted, lions displayed high tolerance and cooperative success was positively correlated with tolerance (Spearman’s correlation test: ρ = 0.83, N = 7, p = 0.02*). To date, this is the first experimental test of and support for cooperative problem solving in lions.

中文翻译：

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社会宽容的狮子（Panthera leo）解决了一个新的合作问题。

合作互动的复杂程度各不相同。情绪反应假说认为，合作的复杂性受到社会不宽容的限制。放松的社会约束条件应由此增加合作的灵活性，并已被提议作为认知进化的关键步骤。狮子（Panthera leo）是研究合作复杂性和宽容性的理想人选。狮子经常合作，他们的平等社会结构预示着高度的社会宽容。我使用食物共享任务和合作解决问题的任务来研究狮子的宽容与合作。大多数对（Ñ = 5/7 dyads）解决了合作任务，在连续的试验中屡获成功，并在相似性和同步性水平上证明了合作的复杂性。令人惊讶的是，狮子没有协调的迹象。如果发生了协调，那么在积累经验之后，当不再天真地需要伴侣时，狮子应增加在一起度过的时间比例，并优先在伴侣在场的情况下完成任务。但是，幼稚的和有经验的对没有区别（Wilcoxon配对对有序秩检验：两者均出现在设备上：S ₄  = − 4.5，N  = 5，p  = 0.50 |两者都接触绳索：S ₄  = − 3.5，N  = 5，p = 0.43 | 同时作用：S ₄  = 2.5，N  = 5，p  = 0.63）。正如预测的那样，狮子表现出很高的耐受性，合作成功与耐受性呈正相关（Spearman相关检验：ρ  = 0.83，N  = 7，p  = 0.02 *）。迄今为止，这是对狮子合作问题解决的首次实验性测试并提供了支持。