do apes have a theory of mind?

?
Is ToM unique to humans?
Children display a very early understanding of other people's psychological states, 1st possibility: Chimp's minds seem similar to ours precisely because it's similar, 2nd possibility: we cannot help distorting the chimp's mind, recreating image
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Premack and Woodruff (1978) What did they investigate?
Does the chimp have a theory of mind? chimp offered correct solutions to an actor's problems, suggesting she could infer the actors intentions
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What was sarah given?
- Sarah was given picture cards which had the solution to the problems the actors portrayed in the videos - She could pick the solution, she would pick the key picture card for the actor who couldn’t get out of the cage
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What did Woodruff and Premack (1979) find out?
- When human cooperated with chimps in finding a goal (hidden incentive) - Chimps able to produce and comprehend behavioural cues which conveyed accurate locational information
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What did chimps learn to do?
Withhold information or mislead the recipient, and to discount or go against the senders own misleading cues
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What is the problem with this?
The chimp could have easily associated the mask with which guy was the bad guy, not fully understanding that he was hostile
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What did Poivenelli say?
Chimps do not reason about others beliefs or any other mental states, same behaviours but not same underlying psychological mechanisms
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What did Tomasello say?
- Chimps have ToM in some respects but not in others - No evidence whether they understand false beliefs - BUT: Chimps understand: Goals and intentions and perception and knowledge of others
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What is the behavioural abstraction hypothesis
Understand only surface level of behaviour and form behavioural rules,
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What does BAH suggest?
- BAH posits that chimpanzees: - Make predictions about future behaviours that follow from past behaviours and adjust their own behaviour accordingly
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what is the beyond behavioural rules?
Chimps highly social animals- need to anticipate what others do
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What is observed?
Previous behaviour and deriving set of behavioural rules enables behavioural prediction
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But?
Inferring states notonly in previously observed situations, but also in novel situations, need to anticipateactions based on goals and intentions
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What do chimps show?
Understanding of goals or intentions, imitation studies contradict Povinelli's behavioural abstraction hyp.
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What is understood?
Chips imitate rationally, imitated Es Novel actions when he seemed to do it intentionally but not when this was due to a physical constraint, chips understand others goals and intentions
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What is altruistic helping?
Cognition: understanding of another's goals, altruistic motivation: no benefit/costly
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What are two studies?
- Study 1: 18mos infants (N=24) Study 2: 36-54mos chimps (N=3)
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What is the procedure?
10 situations, 4 categories o Out-of-reach o Access thwarted by physical object o Achieving wrong result o Using wrong means - 3 ‘request’ phases
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Warneken and Tomasello, 2006
- Children and chimps both willing to help without reward or praise - Chimps helped more in reaching tasks than other tasks - Differ in ability to interpret others need for help?
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What is the methodological note?
Cooperation vs competition
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What do chimps show?
Understanding of goals or intentions
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What are imitation studies /
They contradict Povinelli's behavioural abstraction hyp.
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How do people with autism understand others' perception and knowledge?
- Important to know not only the goals of another but also: - What S/he can see - What S/he knows - Will help determine what S/he does
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Can chimps follow gaze?
- Chimp looks to spot behind her - Chimp tries to look behind screen - Target cannot be what I cannot see
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What is negative evidence of understanding perception?
They didnt discriminate between these two people, they dont understand the implications of the person not being able to see
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Can chimps appreciate what others see?
- Chimps experts at noticing finest subtleties of eye movements and gaze directions - possess and learn rules about visual perception
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However?
These rules do not necessarily incorporate the notion that seeing is about something oblivious to psychological distinction between begging from blindfolded carer VS Non blindfolded, chimps cannot reason about seeing
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What are the 3 explanations?
- General delay in psychological development in chimps - Chimps may possess a different theory of attention - Subjective understanding of visual perception may be unique to humans
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What is the positive evidence of understanding perception?
- Chimps begged more when they were being watched - Sensitive to both body and face orientation but not eyes - They might have had positive results because they only used on experimenter
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Competition Vs cooperation?
- Negative results in the lab required cooperative communication with humansCF informal observations of mentalising in the wild involved competition with conspecifics
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Hare, Call and Tomasello (2001) competitive paradigm
- Suggests chimps can reason about others’ knowledge on the basis of what others have/have not seen
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Behavioural abstraction
- “He was present and facing the food when it was placed where it is now therefore he is likely to go after it”
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What is the second behavioural abstraction?
- “He was not present when the food was placed where it is now therefore he is less likely to go after it”
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What is mental state attribution?
- “He was present and facing the food when it was placed where it is now so he saw the food placed and currently knows where it is therefore he is likely to go after it”
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He was not present when what?
when the food was placed where it is now so he didn’t see it, therefore he doesn’t know.. therefore he is less likely to go after it”
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What perceptions differ?
- Need to distinguish between own and other’s vision - Chimps show visual and auditory perspective taking
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What is the visual perspective taking?
Approaches food competitor can't see
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What is auditory perspective talking, Melis, call, Tomasello, 2006
- In the presence of a human competitor, chimps preferred to reach through a silent rather than noisy tunnel - Suggests they are sensitive to what others can hear - Are able to manipulate the auditory perception of a competitor -
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Do this without?
Past experience of these situations, contradict povinelli's behavioural abstraction hyp.
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False belief: Call and Tomasello, 1999
1. man watches as treat hidden under one of two cups, chimp cant see, 2. man leaves, 3. cups are swapped, 4. man returns and points to one cup, 5. chimp single chance to retrieve
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What does a chimp score?
IF looks under cup man didnt point to
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Marticorena et al(2011)
- Testing monkeys in the wild - Pps opportunistically sampled by searching the island - Used a Violation of Expectancy method similar to Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) with rhesus monkeys
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What does she do?
Looked for longer when actor fails to look for object in correct location when she is informed
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What was the findings?
They can represent whether the actor is knowlegable or ignorant,
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However?
, they did not expect the actor to search in the wrong location in line with their (false) belief
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What can monkets represent
o Monkeys can represent the knowledge and ignorance of others but not their beliefs in contrast to 15mo infants!
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What is the author's claim?
Great apes anticipate that other individuals will act according to false beliefs
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What is the competing explanation
apes used knowledge of abstract rules — specifically, that people tend to look for objects in the place they last saw them
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Premack and Woodruff (1978) What did they investigate?

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Does the chimp have a theory of mind? chimp offered correct solutions to an actor's problems, suggesting she could infer the actors intentions

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What was sarah given?

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What did Woodruff and Premack (1979) find out?

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What did chimps learn to do?

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