ToM apes Flashcards
(23 cards)
What are the two main theoretical positions in the ‘Do apes have ToM?’ debate?
Tomasello: Apes have ToM in some respects (goals, intentions, perception, knowledge), but unclear for false beliefs
- Povinelli: Apes do not reason about beliefs or mental states; same behaviours, different underlying mechanisms
What is the Behavioral Abstraction Hypothesis (BAH)?
Chimps only understand surface-level behaviour and form behavioural rules
- Make predictions about future behaviours based on past behaviours
- Adjust their own behaviour accordingly
- Do not attribute mental states
What did Premack & Woodruff (1978) show in their seminal paper?
Chimp was shown actor’s problem, selected the correct solution, suggesting she could infer intentions
- Only one chimp tested—may not generalize
What evidence do Tomasello and colleagues provide for apes’ understanding of goals and intentions?
Chimps imitate experimenter’s action when it appears intentional, not when caused by physical constraint (Buttelmann et al., 2007)
- Chimps understand others’ goals and intentions
What did Warneken & Tomasello (2006) find about altruistic helping in apes and children?
Both chimps (36-54mo) and human infants (18mo) helped others without reward or praise
- Chimps helped more in reaching tasks
- Co-operation vs competition may affect findings
What did Call & Tomasello (2008) conclude about chimps’ understanding of goals?
Chimps show understanding of goals and intentions
- Contradicts Povinelli’s Behavioural Abstraction Hypothesis
Why is perception and knowledge important for apes’ social behavior?
Need to understand not only goals but also what others can see and know
- Helps anticipate actions in social/competitive situations
What role does eye gaze play in understanding mental states?
Eyes communicate focus, reference, intent, emotion
- Early human sensitivity to gaze (Butterworth & Jarrett, 1991; Farroni et al., 2002)
Can apes follow gaze?
Apes can follow gaze and look behind barriers
- Rely more on head direction than eyes (Povinelli & Eddy, 1996; Tomasello et al., 2007)
What did Povinelli & Eddy (1996) show about apes’ understanding of seeing?
Chimps begged indiscriminately from blindfolded and non-blindfolded humans
- Suggests learning rules about perception, not understanding mental states
What did Kaminski et al. (2004) show about chimps’ perception of being watched?
Chimps begged more when watched
- Sensitive to body and face orientation but not to eyes
What is the significance of co-operation vs competition in ToM tasks with apes?
Negative lab results may reflect tasks requiring co-operation with humans (not natural for chimps)
- In the wild, competitive tasks may be more ecologically valid for mentalising
What did Hare, Call & Tomasello (2001) show about knowledge attribution in chimps?
Chimps in competitive paradigms can reason about what others have/haven’t seen
- Suggests they can reason about others’ knowledge (but perhaps not beliefs)
What evidence is there for visual and auditory perspective-taking in chimps?
Chimps distinguish between own and other’s vision; show visual/auditory perspective-taking (Hare et al., 2006)
- Prefer silent tunnels to avoid alerting competitor (Melis et al., 2006)
Do chimps apply perspective-taking in novel situations?
Yes; perform these tasks even without prior experience
- Contradicts the Behavioral Abstraction Hypothesis (Call & Tomasello, 2008)
How did Call & Tomasello (1999) test apes’ understanding of false belief?
Man hides treat; cups swapped; man points to a cup; ape must choose
- Apes did not pass (did not use FB)
What did Marticorena et al. (2011) find about rhesus monkeys’ ToM?
Rhesus monkeys represent others’ knowledge but not beliefs
- Looked longer when an actor failed to look in correct location (true belief), but not in false belief condition
- Suggests they can represent knowledge/ignorance but not belief
What did Krupenye et al. (2016) show with anticipatory gaze in great apes?
Used anticipatory gaze paradigm
- Great apes (chimps, bonobos, orangutans) anticipated others’ actions based on their (false) belief
- Competing explanation: apes might just use behavioral rules about searching
What is the overall evidence for ToM in apes?
Apes understand goals, intentions, and seeing = knowing
- Mixed evidence for false belief (may depend on task type)
- Reports of ‘mentalising’ in wild; failures in lab FB tasks until recent studies (Krupenye et al., 2016)
Why does task design (cooperation vs competition) matter in ToM studies with apes?
Apes may mentalise more in competitive situations, less in co-operative/lab settings
What are two main ways to interpret ToM-related behavior in apes?
Behavioral abstraction: predict actions from learned rules/patterns
- Mental-state attribution: understand beliefs, goals, perceptions
What is a key critique of false belief studies with apes?
Apes may succeed by relying on learned behavioral rules, not mental-state reasoning
- Ongoing debate (see Kano et al., 2019 for further evidence against behavioral rule-only explanations)
Summarise the current consensus about apes and ToM:
Apes show evidence of understanding goals, intentions, perception, and knowledge
- Little/ambiguous evidence for full false belief understanding
- Interpretation depends on task, methodology, and what is meant by ‘theory of mind’
