Cognition Flashcards
Whiten 2005
To empirically test whether an experimentally taught method of obtaining food would spread through a group of chimps (indicating cultural transmission)
2 alternative methodology puzzle box. Expert taught one method then released to show group.
30/32 chimps adopted experts method. 18/30 showed conformity effects. Foundation of human culture?
Whiten 2005 Review
Chimp communities have complex social inheritance systems like human communities.
Differences in social learning could be due to the cog demands of each culture.
Whiten et al 1999
Identified 39 behaviours (absent in some groups but customary/habitual in others, apparently without ecological explanations) as culturally variant. Likely imitation is involved, but has not been explicitly tested.
Hakn et al 2012
Investigated majority biased cultural transmission in 2 year old humans, chimps and orangeutans.
Chimps considered the number of demonstrators more than the number of demonstrations when deciding which information to extract from their social environment: infants considered both; orangeutans considered neither.
Majority based social learning is present in humans and chimps.
Thornton and McAuliffe 2006
To investigate whether teaching occurs in meerkats.
Pups trained on live scorpions successfully handled the test scorpion, whereas those exposed to an egg (control) or a stingless scorpion sometimes lost their scorpions and all were pincered or pseudo-stung.
Buttlemann 2017
Great apes as a group all passed the same non-verbal false belief task as a 1 year old human
Schilhab 2004
Most great apes seem to pass the MSR task, indicating a cognitive difference between apes and other species (Schilhab argues that methodological problems refute this).
Why do species of similar cognitive abilties vary in performance?
Modern research favours weak interpritation of self which only predicts imitation.
Povinelli et al 1997
Anaesthetic is not a confounding variable in the mirror self recognition task
Plotnik 2006
Only 1/3 elephants passed the mirror self recognition task, after 2months 0/3 passed.
Krupeneye et al 2016
Eye tracking during false belief paradigm. Great apes made significantly more anticipatory eye movements to the location the actor falsely believed the target to be, rather than the distractor location. Indicates implicit understanding of false belief.
Tomassello and Call 2008
There is solid evidence that chimps understand the goals and intentions of others, as well as the perception and knowledge of others. In 2008, no evidence chimps understand false beliefs.
Chimps do more than percieve surface beahviours, it is unlikely they have fully humanlike belief-desire psychollogy.
Povinelli and Vonk 2003
Research into theory of mind has not considered the notion that chimps can form behavioural abstractions (ability of animals to adopt the behaviour of the environment)
Kaminski et al 2008
Do chimps know what others know or is the evil eye hypothesis true?
Compared chimp understanding to a 6 year old human.
False belief paradigm.Chimps understand knowledge ignorance but not false beliefs. Disproves evil eye hypothesis.
Hare et al 2001
Subordinate and dominant competed for food. Subordinate chose food more often in the dominant competitor had not seen where it had been hidden. Indicates sub recognises and takes advantage of what others have not seen.
