How do children compare with chimps

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How do children compare with chimps?

• Empathy, deception and cooperation

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Are chimps capable of empathy? Premack
Woodruff (1978)

• The trouble with Premack Woodruff
• Is it necessary to engage in empathy in order to
  identify a problem solution?
• Possibly not.

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Warneken Tomasello, 2006, Science
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(No Transcript)
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How Sarah inspired the study of
deceptionWoodruff Premack (1979)

• Do chimps understand the two-way link between
  communicating and knowing?
• If you want to mislead someone, feed them with
  misinformation!
• Conversely, trust communication from someone who
  is honest and informed!

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Povinelli et al.
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Results
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Heyes (1994) Training studies are
inadequatePovinellis (1990) new condition
solves the problem
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Variations on the theme
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A nonverbal analogue of the message-desire task
(Call Tomasello, 2000)

• Stage 1 A man watches as a treat is hidden under
  one of two cups the chimp cant see the hiding
• Stage 2 The man leaves
• Stage 3 The cups (and their contents) are
  swapped around
• Stage 4 The man returns and points to one of the
  cups
• Stage 5 The chimp has a single chance to
  retrieve the reward and is scored correct is she
  looks under the cup the man did not point to