A universal preference for animate agents in hominids

Brocard, Sarah; Wilson, Vanessa A.D.; Berton, Chloé; Zuberbühler, Klaus; Bickel, Balthasar

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.109996

iScience

2024

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109996

|View full text |Cite

A universal preference for animate agents in hominids

Sarah Brocard,

Vanessa A.D. Wilson,

Chloé Berton

et al.

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2024

Publication Types

Select...

Article2

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent2

Authors

Journals

Cited by 2 publications

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

Humans and great apes visually track event roles in similar ways

Wilson,

Sauppe,

Brocard

et al. 2024

PLoS Biol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Human language relies on a rich cognitive machinery, partially shared with other animals. One key mechanism, however, decomposing events into causally linked agent–patient roles, has remained elusive with no known animal equivalent. In humans, agent–patient relations in event cognition drive how languages are processed neurally and expressions structured syntactically. We compared visual event tracking between humans and great apes, using stimuli that would elicit causal processing in humans. After accounting for attention to background information, we found similar gaze patterns to agent–patient relations in all species, mostly alternating attention to agents and patients, presumably in order to learn the nature of the event, and occasionally privileging agents under specific conditions. Six-month-old infants, in contrast, did not follow agent–patient relations and attended mostly to background information. These findings raise the possibility that event role tracking, a cognitive foundation of syntax, has evolved long before language but requires time and experience to become ontogenetically available.

show abstract

Humans and great apes visually track event roles in similar ways

Wilson,

Sauppe,

Brocard

et al. 2024

PLoS Biol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

A comparative study of causal perception in Guinea baboons (Papio papio) and human adults

Meewis,

Barezzi,

Fagot

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In humans, simple 2D visual displays of launching events (“Michottean launches”) can evoke the impression of causality. Direct launching events are regarded as causal, but similar events with a temporal and/or spatial gap between the movements of the two objects, as non-causal. This ability to distinguish between causal and non-causal events is perceptual in nature and develops early and preverbally in infancy. In the present study we investigated the evolutionary origins of this phenomenon and tested whether Guinea baboons (Papio papio) perceive causality in launching events. We used a novel paradigm which was designed to distinguish between the use of causality and the use of spatiotemporal properties. Our results indicate that Guinea baboons successfully discriminate between different Michottean events, but we did not find a learning advantage for a categorisation based on causality as was the case for human adults. Our results imply that, contrary to humans, baboons focused on the spatial and temporal gaps to achieve accurate categorisation, but not on causality per se. Understanding how animals perceive causality is important to figure out whether non-human animals comprehend events similarly to humans. Our study hints at a different manner of processing physical causality for Guinea baboons and human adults.

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

A universal preference for animate agents in hominids

Cited by 2 publications

References 54 publications

Humans and great apes visually track event roles in similar ways

Humans and great apes visually track event roles in similar ways

A comparative study of causal perception in Guinea baboons (Papio papio) and human adults

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About