Understanding differences in the way human and non-human primates represent tools: The role of teleological-intentional information

Ruiz, April M.; Santos, Laurie R.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511894800.008

Cited by 62 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…The teleological-intentional stance proposes that humans represent objects as being made for a specific purpose by an agent (e.g., Defeyter & German, 2003;Defeyter et al, 2009;German, Truxaw, & Defeyter, 2007;Hernik & Csibra, 2009;Ruiz & Santos, 2013). candle problem, in which a box first serves as container and then as support for a candle (Duncker, 1945), can be conceived from the teleological-intentional stance as "boxes are designed and created to contain things" and normatively as "things go inside boxes".…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How prior experience and task presentation modulate innovation in 6-year-old-children

Ebel

Hanuš

Call

2019

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How prior experience and task presentation modulate innovation in 6-year-old-children

Ebel

Hanuš

Call

2019

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…thinking in other animals. For example, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans (at least) are able to think ahead, plan, and select tools for later use (Mulcahy and Call 2006;Ruiz and Santos 2013). Primates are also good at social cognition and planning strategic political behavior (de Waal 1982(de Waal , 1989Small 1993).…”

Section: An Evolutionary Interpretation Of Teleology Itselfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teleology’s long shadow

Werth

Allchin

2020

Evo Edu Outreach

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We describe the ubiquity of teleological language and thinking throughout biology, as a context for understanding how students think about evolution, as well. Examples can be found in molecular biology, physiology, ecology, and taxonomy, at least. Recent research documents a deep human psychological tendency to attribute purpose or intent (and thus normative meaning) to natural phenomena. We present a possible evolutionary explanation. Still, these cognitive habits help foster scientific errors of projecting human norms onto natural phenomena (what we have elsewhere termed the naturalizing error). Subsequent appeals to "nature" are used (inappropriately) to justify cultural ideologies. Accordingly, we advocate explicit learning about teleological dispositions and their cultural consequences as an essential countermeasure.

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“…Therefore, understanding how primates mentally represent tools is key for any comparison between human and ape cultures. Humans are often considered unique in their ability to represent objects as ‘made for something,’ that is, to naturally adopt a teleological stance when dealing with them ( Gergely and Csibra, 2003 ; Ruiz and Santos, 2013 ), an ability that appears to facilitate the acquisition of tool use behavior by toddlers ( Hernik and Csibra, 2009 ).…”

Section: Metarepresentations and Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key test is whether an animal would be surprised if another group member deviated from an established technique to solve a familiar task. Current progress in infant and child cognition research offers promising new avenues, notably in adapting studies of object categorisation, representation, and conceptualisation ( Kelemen and Carey, 2007 ; Mandler, 2007 ; DiYanni and Kelemen, 2008 ; Ruiz and Santos, 2013 ). For instance, research on functional fixedness will provide a deeper understanding of the cognitive underlay of primate culture.…”

Section: Summary and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Apes have culture but may not know that they do

Gruber¹,

Zuberbühler²,

Clément³

et al. 2015

Front. Psychol.

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There is good evidence that some ape behaviors can be transmitted socially and that this can lead to group-specific traditions. However, many consider animal traditions, including those in great apes, to be fundamentally different from human cultures, largely because of lack of evidence for cumulative processes and normative conformity, but perhaps also because current research on ape culture is usually restricted to behavioral comparisons. Here, we propose to analyze ape culture not only at the surface behavioral level but also at the underlying cognitive level. To this end, we integrate empirical findings in apes with theoretical frameworks developed in developmental psychology regarding the representation of tools and the development of metarepresentational abilities, to characterize the differences between ape and human cultures at the cognitive level. Current data are consistent with the notion of apes possessing mental representations of tools that can be accessed through re-representations: apes may reorganize their knowledge of tools in the form of categories or functional schemes. However, we find no evidence for metarepresentations of cultural knowledge: apes may not understand that they or others hold beliefs about their cultures. The resulting Jourdain Hypothesis, based on Molière’s character, argues that apes express their cultures without knowing that they are cultural beings because of cognitive limitations in their ability to represent knowledge, a determining feature of modern human cultures, allowing representing and modifying the current norms of the group. Differences in metarepresentational processes may thus explain fundamental differences between human and other animals’ cultures, notably limitations in cumulative behavior and normative conformity. Future empirical work should focus on how animals mentally represent their cultural knowledge to conclusively determine the ways by which humans are unique in their cultural behavior.

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Understanding differences in the way human and non-human primates represent tools: The role of teleological-intentional information

Cited by 62 publications

References 54 publications

How prior experience and task presentation modulate innovation in 6-year-old-children

How prior experience and task presentation modulate innovation in 6-year-old-children

Teleology’s long shadow

Apes have culture but may not know that they do

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