L3 - Do Apes Have Theory of Mind? Flashcards
What are the possibilities for apes to have ToM?
- Chimpanzee’s mind seems similar to ours precisely because it is so similar
- We cannot help distorting Chimpanzee’s mind, recreating it in our own image and assume they are like us
What did Premack and Woodruff 1978 find about the chimpanzee’s theory of mind?
Showed the chimps a video of a problem (e.g. the chimp could choose the correct solutions)
Found that the chimp offered correct solutions to an actor’s solutions - an ability to reason with mental states
But the chimp had been in captivity and trained with cognitive tasks so cannot be generalised
What is the debate about chimps’ ToM?
Povinelli camp - chimps do not reason about others’ beliefs, or any other mental states, same behaviours but not the same underlying psychological mechanisms
Tomasello camp - chimps have ToM in some respects but not in others, no evidence whether they understand false beliefs, but they understand goals and intentions and perception and knowledge of others
What is the behavioural abstraction hypothesis?
Understand only surface level of behaviour and form rules
BAH says that chimpanzees:
- make predictions about future behaviours that follow from past behaviours
- adjust their own behaviour accordingly
What is the beyond behavioural rules hypothesis?
Chimps highly social animals - need to anticipate what others do
Observing previous behaviour and deriving set of behavioural rules enables behavioural prediction
But inferring states not only in previously observed situations, but also in novel situations
Need to anticipate actions based on goals and intentions
What is the difference between goals and intentions?
Goal = what person is trying to do or achieve
Intention = the action plan chosen for pursuing this goal
Apes imitate the interaction that they observed but only when they have busy hands - chimps understand other’s goals and intentions
What is altruistic helping?
Helping with no benefits to oneself
Requires cognition and understanding others’ goals
Altruistic motivations = no benefit
What research did Warneken and Tomasello 2006 do into altruistic helping?
Study 1:
- 18 month old
Study 2:
- 36-54 month old chimps
- out of reach, access blocked by object, achieve wrong result, using wrong method
Children and chimps both willing to help without regard or praise
Chimps helped more in reaching tasks than other tasks
Differ in ability to interpret needs for help???
Contradict Behavioural Abstraction Hypothesis
What is the mentalistic significance of eye gaze?
The eyes communicate vital information about an individual’s mental state
- focus of attention
- object of reference, desire, aversion
- intent to act
- feelings, mental activities
What are the finding for early foundations of eyegaze?
Infants prefer:
Open eyes rather than closed eyes - Batki et al 200
Direct rather than averted gaze - Farroni 2002
Begin gaze following at 6 months - D’Entremont 1997
Can apes follow gaze?
Ape relies more on head direction than eye direction
They might follow gaze just because they have learnt it will lead to something interesting
Can chimps appreciate what others see?
Expert at noticing eye movements and gaze direction
Learn rules about visual perception
But these rules do not necessarily incorporate the notion that seeing is about something
Kaminski 2004 - chimps begged more when they were being watched, sensitive to both body and dace orientation but not eyes
What is the evidence for the competitive paradigm?
Hare, Call and Tomasello 2001
Chimps can reason about others’ knowledge based of what others have/have not seen
Subordinate ape only retrieved food when they could see that the dominant ape hadn’t seen where it was put
What is auditory perspective taking?
In the presence of a human competitor, chimps preferred to reach through a silent door rather than a noisy door
They are sensitive to what others can hear
Manipulate audio of a competitor
No preference in control
What is Marticorena 2011 research with Rhesus monkeys?
Used violation expectancy method
- They looked for longer when actor failed to look for object in correct location when she is informed
FB task
- No difference in looking time as there was no expectation
They can represent when the actor is ignorant or knowledgeable
However, they did not expect the actor to search in the wrong location
