Do Apes Have Theory of Mind Flashcards
What does ToM in apes involve?
Ability to understand: Goals Intentions Perception Knowledge False Belief
Who presented the seminal paper about chimps having theory of mind
Premack and Woodruff 1978
What did Premack and Woodruffs 1978 paper involve?
Chimps watched clips of people struggling to solve problem and chimp offered the correct solution to the actors problems
What was concluded from Premack and Woodruffs 1978 paper
Suggested that the chimp could infer the actors intentions.
What was the procedure for Woodruff and Premack 1979
Live action, decide whether or not to share food - when human co-operated with chimp in finding a goal.
What did Premack and Woodruff 1979 find when co-operating?
Chimps were able to produce and comprehend behavioural cues which convey accurate locational information.
What did Premack and Woodruff 1979 find that the chimps did when the human completed for the same goal?
Chimps learned to without information or mislead the recipient, and to go against the sender own misleading cues
What had to occur in order for Premack and Woodruff 1979 find their results
Lots of training!
What can be concluded from Premack and Woodruff 1979
Evidence for a capacity for intentional withholding of information or misleading of a participant
What does the POVINELLI camp believe?
Chimps DO NOT reason about others beliefs or any other mental states.
Same behaviours, but not same underlying psychological mechanisms
Chimps have ToM is some respect but not others- no evidence whether they understand false beliefs
Chimps do understand goals, intentions, perception and knowledge of others - is the stance taken by?
Tomasello
Who’s is responsible for the Behavioural Abstraction Hypothesis
Tomasello
Define the Behavioural Abstraction Hypothesis?
Only understand only surface- level of behaviour and form behavioural rules
‘BAH’ posits that chimpanzees:
- make predictions about future behaviours that follow from past behaviours, and
- adjust their own behaviour accordingly
Why may chimps go beyond behavioural rules?
Highly social, need to anticipate what others do, important for them to anticipate behaviours, but in novel situations cant rely on rules.
How many studies did Tomellso’s review involve
10
What did Tomellso conclude from his review
Chimps sow understanding of goals an intentions
What was Call and Tomasello 2008 procedure
Chimps watch man with full hands turn on light with foot, pr empty hands turn on light with foot
What did Call and Tomasello 2008 find
That chimps imitate novel action when he seemed to do it intentionally but not when this was due to physical constraint.
Chimps understand others goals and intention
Who studied Altruistic helping?
Wamelken and Tomasello 2006
Define altruistic
Helping someone else without any reward, motivated to help as you as you don’t benefit from it
Who did Wamelken and Tomasello 2006 study?
18m infants
36-54 months
What did Wamelken and Tomasello’s 2006 procedure involve
Out-of-reach
Access thwarted by physical
object
Achieving wrong result
Using wrong means
What did Wamelken and Tomasello’s 2006 find?
Children and chimps both willing to help without reward or praise
Chimps helped more in reaching tasks than other tasks (salient cue?)
Who studied if chimps could follow gaze when a target couldn’t be seen
Povinelli & Eddy (1996)
Did Povinelli & Eddy (1996) produce positive or negative evidence for chimps following gaze
Negative
What can chimps perceive
Finest subtleties of eye movements and gaze directions
Do chimps learn rules about visual perception
YESo
BUT: these rules do not necessarily incorporate the notion that seeing is “about” something
In what year was it concluded that chimps cannot reason about seeing
1996
What are the 3 explanations about chimp perception
General delay in psychological development in chimpanzees.
Chimpanzees may possess a different (but nonetheless mentalistic) theory of attention
Subjective understanding of visual perception may be unique to humans
Who presented positive evidence of chimps following gaze?
Kaminski et al. 2004
What did Kaminski et al. 2004 find
That chimps begged more when they were being watched, suggesting that they can tell where someone else is looking
Chimps are sensitive to both body and face orientation but not eyes
In the lab, have positive or negative results been found for co-operative communication with humans?
Negative
What did Hare, Call and Tomasello’s 2001 Competitive paradigm find?
That chimps can reason about others knowledge on the basis of what the others have / have not seen.
What are the two interpretations of Hare Call and Tomasello’s 2001 work?
Behavioural Abstraction
Mental-State Attribution
What is the behavioural abstraction interpretation of Hare Call and Tomasello 2001
“He was present and facing the food when it was placed where it is now therefore he is likely to go after it”
“He was not present when the food was placed where it is now therefore he is less likely to go after it”
What is the mental-state attribution of Hare Call and Tomasello 2001
“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”
“He was not present 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”
In what ways do perceptions differ?
Need to distinguish between own and others views, difference between seeing and knowing.
What did Hare et al. 2006 find about chimp ToM with regards to perception
Found that chimps show visual and auditory perspective taking.
What did Melis Call and Tomasello 2006 find regarding auditory perspective taking?
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
When Call and Tomasello 1999 conducted an FB task with chimps, how many passed?
None
What is a key difference between Call and Tomasello 1999s FB test and Marticornea et al. 2011
Marticornea et al. 2011 conducted the test on monkeys in the wild
What did Marticornea et al.’s FB task find
Monkeys represent others knowledge but not their beliefs - can represent whether the actor is knowledgable or ignorant but cant represent others beliefs.
What method did Krupenye et al. 2016 use to study false beliefs
Eye tracking in anticipatory faze paradigm based on Southgate 2007
