Animal Cognition SelfRecognition, Theory of Mind

1
Animal Cognition Self-Recognition, Theory of
Mind Social Understanding

• Keith Clements

2
Aims

• Discuss evidence for self-recognition, imitation
  and deception in other species
• Discuss what the research might tell us about
  other species self-awareness and awareness of
  others minds.

3
Theory of Mind (ToM)

• The ability to take anothers perspective and
  understand their motivation
• Deceit
• Imitation
• Might also relate to self-awareness
• Self-recognition
• Methodology
• Naturalistic observation
• Controlled experiments

4
Deceit

• Suggestive observations in the wild
• Cheney Seyfarth (1990)
• Vervet Monkeys give different alarm calls
• Leopard
• Eagle
• Snake
• One low ranking monkey apparently used leopard
  call to disrupt attempts to join his troupe
• Deceit or merely learning?
• For examples of calls see
• http//www.wjh.harvard.edu/mnkylab/media/vervetca
  lls.html

5
Imitation

• Japanese Macaques on Koshima inlet
• washing sweet potatoes spread from one individual
  to the whole group
• individual learning or imitation?
• Apparent imitation reflect a range of processes.
  Can distinguish
• Local enhancement
• Stimulus enhancement
• Goal emulation
• Social facilitation
• True imitation

6
Laboratory studies of imitation

• Vicarious conditioning
• Mineka et al (1984) Monkeys can learn fear of
  snakes by observing another monkey display fear
  to a snake.
• Bidirectional control procedure
• Evidence that quails, pigeons rats do learn
  from observing a conspecific make a response.
• Imitation of human models
• Whitten et al. (1996) demonstrated copying of
  actions required to open an artificial fruit by
  both children and chimpanzees.
• Moore (1992) documented spontaneous imitation of
  actions by a grey parrot, Okichoro

7
Direct tests of perspective taking

• Chimps allowed to choose who to ask for help
• Can learn not to ask individuals who would not
  know, but only after extensive practice 70
  accuracy after 200-300 trials (Povinelli et al,
  1990)
• ?Competition more instinctive than cooperation?
• Hare (2001) subordinate chimp can take account of
  dominant chimps view when choosing food.

8
Mirrors

• In humans self-recognition in a mirror appears
  around 18 months
• Chimps, Orangutans and Dolphins appear to show
  self-directed behaviour in front of a mirror.

9
Red Mark test ( Gallup, 1997)

• Animal anaesthetised
• ink on forehead and ear
• Once awake, on seeing marks in mirror they touch
  them
• Chimps
• Orangutans
• Dolphins also show interest in marks (Reiss
  Marino, 2001)
• Recently demonstrated in elephants
  http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6100430.stm

10
Criticisms

• Heyes (1998) can we distinguish deliberate
  touching from grooming?
• Povinelli et al. (1993) found chimps touched
  their marks 2.5 times in 30 mins. without a
  mirror and only 3.9 times with a mirror.
• Gallup (1998) linked self-awareness to theory of
  mind.
• Does self-recognition necessarily tell us about
  self-concept?

11
Reading

• Chapter 2 in Wynne. Animal Cognition
• Theres a review of work on social learning by
  Galef (2001) on his web pages at
• http//www.sociallearning.info/home/pdf/biology20
  of20behavior20-20social20learning20and20imit
  ation.pdf