101 research outputs found
The direct perception hypothesis: perceiving the intention of another’s action hinders its precise imitation
We argue that imitation is a learning response to unintelligible actions, especially to social conventions. Various strands of evidence are converging on this conclusion, but further progress has been hampered by an outdated theory of perceptual experience. Comparative psychology continues to be premised on the doctrine that humans and nonhuman primates only perceive others’ physical ‘surface behavior’, while mental states are perceptually inaccessible. However, a growing consensus in social cognition research accepts the Direct Perception Hypothesis: primarily we see what others aim to do; we do not infer it from their motions. Indeed, physical details are overlooked – unless the action is unintelligible. On this basis we hypothesize that apes’ propensity to copy the goal of an action, rather than its precise means, is largely dependent on its perceived intelligibility. Conversely, children copy means more often than adults and apes because, uniquely, much adult human behavior is completely unintelligible to unenculturated observers due to the pervasiveness of arbitrary social conventions, as exemplified by customs, rituals, and languages. We expect the propensity to imitate to be inversely correlated with the familiarity of cultural practices, as indexed by age and/or socio-cultural competence. The Direct Perception Hypothesis thereby helps to parsimoniously explain the most important findings of imitation research, including children’s over-imitation and other species-typical and age-related variations
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Testing dogs in ape-like conditions: the effect of a barrier on dogs’ performance on the object-choice task
Recent reviews have found marked procedural and methodological differences in the testing of different taxonomic groups on the object-choice task. One such difference is the imposition of a barrier in the testing environment of nonhuman primates in the form of a cage, necessitated to ensure the experimenter’s safety. Here, we conducted two studies with domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in which we compared the performance of dogs tested from within a child’s playpen and dogs tested without this barrier present. In Study 1, in a within-subjects design, we found no effect of the barrier on dogs’ ability to use a pointing cue, but there was an increase in instances in which dogs failed to choose a cup. In Study 2, in a between-subjects design, dogs tested with a barrier failed to perform above chance, and were also more likely to fail to make a choice. When dogs tested without a barrier made an incorrect response, these were more likely to be incorrect choices than no choice errors. We discuss the implications of these differences in behavioural responses in function of the presence of a barrier and the necessity of ensuring matched conditions when comparing across species
Why vocal production of atypical sounds in apes and its cerebral correlates have a lot to say about the origin of language
Ackermann et al. mentioned the "acquisition of species-atypical sounds" in apes without any discussions. In our commentary, we demonstrate that these atypical sounds in chimpanzees not only include laryngeal sounds but also have a major significance regarding the origins of language, if we consider looking at their context of use, their social properties, their relations with gestures, their lateralization and their neurofunctional correlates as well
The effects of changes in the referential problem space of infants and toddlers (homo sapiens): implications for cross-species comparisons
Recent reviews have highlighted the tendency in the comparative literature to make claims about species’ relative evolutionarily adaptive histories based on studies comparing different species tested with procedurally and methodologically different protocols. One particularly contentious area is the use of the Object Choice Task (OCT), used to measure an individual’s ability to use referential cues, which is a core attribute of joint attention. We tested human children with versions of the OCT that have been previously used with dogs and nonhuman primates to see if manipulating the set-up would lead to behavioral changes. In Study 1, we compared the responses of 18-month-olds and 36-month-olds when tested with and without a barrier. The presence of a barrier between the child and the reward did not suppress performance but did elicit more communicative behavior. Moreover, the barrier had a greater facilitating effect on the younger children, who displayed more communicative behavior in comparison with older children, who more frequently reached through the barrier in acts of direct prehension. In Study 2, we compared the behavior of 36-month-olds when the reward was within reaching distance (proximal) and when it was out of reach (distal). The children used index-finger points significantly more in the distal condition and grabbed more in the proximal condition, showing that they were making spatial judgements about the accessibility of the reward rather than just grabbing per se. We discuss the implications of these within-species differences in behavioral responses for cross-species comparisons
The performance of domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) on two versions of the Object Choice Task
Object choice task (OCT) studies are widely used to assess the phylogenetic and ontogenetic distribution of the understanding of communicative cues, with this understanding serving as a proxy for the discernment of communicative intentions. Recent reviews have found systematic procedural and methodological differences in studies which compare performances across species on the OCT. One such difference concerns the spatial configuration of the test set-up, specifically the distances between the two containers (inter-object distance) and the subject–experimenter distance. Here, we tested dogs on two versions of the task: a central version in which the containers were in the subjects’ direct line of vision, and a peripheral version in which the position of the containers was distal to the subject. Half of the subjects were tested with a barrier in the testing environment (as nonhuman primates are tested) and the other half without. We found that dogs tested with a barrier performed significantly better in the central version and were more likely to fail to make a choice in the peripheral version. Dogs tested without a barrier showed comparable performance on the two versions. We thus failed to find support for the distraction hypothesis in dogs. We discuss potential explanations for this, highlighting how methodological differences in the presentation of the OCT can influence outcomes in studies using this paradigm
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[Review] Tomasello, M (2021) Becoming human: a theory of ontogeny
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'A menagerie of human concepts' [Review] Michael Tomasello (2019) Becoming human: a theory of ontogeny
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Are chimpanzees really so poor at understanding imperative pointing? Some new data and an alternative view of canine and ape social cognition
There is considerable interest in comparative research on different species’ abilities to respond to human communicative cues such as gaze and pointing. It has been reported that some canines perform significantly better than monkeys and apes on tasks requiring the comprehension of either declarative or imperative pointing and these differences have been attributed to domestication in dogs. Here we tested a sample of chimpanzees on a task requiring comprehension of an imperative request and show that, though there are considerable individual differences, the performance by the apes rival those reported in pet dogs. We suggest that small differences in methodology can have a pronounced influence on performance on these types of tasks. We further suggest that basic differences in subject sampling, subject recruitment and rearing experiences have resulted in a skewed representation of canine abilities compared to those of monkeys and apes
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