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Humans, apes both understand intent expert says

Michael Tomasello, codirector of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and of the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Leipzig, Germany
5:01 p.m., Nov. 12, 2004--On the screen, a chimp sits on one side of a glass window with an opening at bottom-center through which a researcher shoves grapes. When the researcher attempts to put a grape through the opening and fails, the chimp is patient. When he tries again and fails, the chimp is patient, but when the man shows the chimp the grape and then purposely pulls it away, the chimp becomes agitated and eventually, turns away.

“Can a child or chimp determine what you intended to do, rather than what you did?” asked Michael Tomasello, codirector of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and of the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Leipzig, Germany. He said the chimp was patient when the researcher dropped the grape, but when he pulled it away repeatedly, the chimp got angry. It was obvious from watching the chimp that the answer is “Yes.”

Children and great apes have two things in common, understanding and perception, Tomasello said. The chimp understood the intention behind each action, and children 10 or 12 months do the same, Tomasello said.

Known for his research with human children ages 1 to 4 years old and with great apes, Tomasello spoke to a capacity audience in Room 109 Willard Hall on Nov. 8.

He was invited to speak at UD by the School of Education and UD’s Cognitive Science Program. Tomasello, a psychologist, is internationally acclaimed for his work into the processes of social cognition or thinking skills that include perception, memory, awareness, reasoning, judgment, intellect and imagination and social learning and communication, from developmental, comparative and cultural perspectives. His specialty is in language and its acquisition in human children and great apes.

His talk used video clips and graphics of his experimental work with human children and with chimps to show similarities and differences in the way they think.

“Human cognition may seem different than the cognition of other species, but humans have only been separated from apes for 5 or 6 million years,” a short time for such a big difference in behavior, Tomasello said. It couldn’t be genetic, since there hasn’t been enough time, so his conclusion is that the difference must be cultural.

He asked if a human child with no human contact would develop as a normal child would. His answer to his own question was “No,” that a child kept alive with no human contact, no human learning, would develop much like an ape. “The major differences between humans and apes are the skills handed down.”

Tomasello showed clips of a chimp following a researcher’s gaze, but when the researcher dropped his gaze, the chimp looked in that direction again to see if there was really something there. “Both chimps and children don’t just parrot. They are curious and want to see what you are seeing,” he said. They may seem to be parroting actions, but are actually expressing curiosity.

A banana is put on a table between the researcher and the chimp. The chimp is behind a clear plastic enclosure with a door that opens to the table but squeaks when it opens. The man grabs the banana and takes part of it. The other part is put on the table. When the man’s attention turns elsewhere, the chimp, sitting behind the barrier opens the door, but ever so slowly, making sure the door does not squeak attracting the man’s attention to the banana that the chimp is taking.

These experiments show that apes know that others pursue goals persistently, that others perceive things they do not and that others have intentions, Tomasello said.

What is not common to both is the concept of sharing and collaboration. “Chimps and humans share nearly all cognitive skills but that which allows humans to participate in a collaborative process,” Tomasello said.

In another clip, a child and a researcher were on opposite sides of a cloth mat with a can in the center. The object was for the two of them to keep the can on the mat. The child happily played the game, but when it was done with a chimp, the chimp quickly dropped the mat, seeing no point in the game.

Human children will share food, not so with chimps. In a clip of a mother chimp and her offspring, she eats the apple, never once offering it to her offspring, forcing him to steal a bite. Then, Tomasello showed a clip of a child grabbing a cookie jar, “just so you see the chimp in the child,” he said.

Barbara Garrison
Photo by Kevin Quinlan

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