Primates Expect Others To Act Rationally
Offline http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906140753.htm
Science Daily — When trying to understand someone's intentions, non-human primates expect others to act rationally by performing the most appropriate action allowed by the environment, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University.
The work was led by Justin Wood, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, with David Glynn, a research assistant, and Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard, along with Brenda Phillips of Boston University.
"A dominant view has been that non-human primates attend only to what actions 'look like' when trying to understand what others are thinking," says Wood. "In contrast, our research shows that non-human primates infer others' intentions in a much more sophisticated way. They expect other individuals to perform the most rational action that they can, given the environmental obstacles that they face."
The scientists studied the behavioral response of over 120 primates, including cotton-top tamarins, rhesus macaques and chimpanzees. These species represent each of the three major groups of primates: New World monkeys, Old World monkeys and apes. All three species were tested in the same way, and the results showed the same responses among the different types.
In the first experiment, the primates were presented with two potential food containers, and the experimenter either purposefully grasped one of the containers, or flopped their hand onto one of the containers in an accidental manner. For all three species, the primates sought the food container that was purposefully grasped a greater number of times than the container upon which the hand was flopped. This indicates that the primate inferred goal-oriented action on the part of the experimenter when he grasped the container, and was able to understand the difference between the goal-oriented and accidental behavior.
In the second experiment, the researchers asked if the primates infer others' goals under the expectation that other individuals will perform the most rational action allowed by the environmental obstacles. Again, the primates were presented with two potential food containers. In one scenario, an experimenter touched a container with his elbow when his hands were full, and in another scenario, touched a container with his elbow when his hands were empty.
The primates looked for the food in the container indicated with the elbow more often when the experimenter's hands were full. The primates considered, just as a human being would, that if someone's hands are full then it is rational for them to use their elbow to indicate the container with food, whereas if their hands are empty it is not rational for them to use their elbow, because they could have used their unoccupied hand.
Developmental psychologists have long understood that young children are able to engage in this type of rational action perception, but scientists have not understood if this ability is unique to human beings, or shared with other animals. This study suggests that this ability evolved as long as 40 million years ago, with non-human primates.
"This study represents one of the broadest comparative studies of primate cognition, and the significance of the findings is reinforced by the fact that these results were consistent across three different species of primates," says Wood. "The results have significant implications for understanding the evolution of the processes that allow us to make sense of other people's behavior."
The findings appear in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal of Science.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Guggenheim, and the National Science Federation.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Harvard University.
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Whilst being subject to the same irrational urges - at least economically - as we are it seems:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050710202457.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030918092951.htm
So they can choose to be rational but, like us, sometimes are not.
Freedom of religious belief is an inalienable right. Stuffing that belief down other people's throats is not.
Why isn't this just projecting "rational" onto an automatic behavior? THis strikes me as an anthropomorphic interpretation of the events.
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Wouldn't it only be anthropormorphism if the interpretation was "performing actions appropriate to humans in that environment"?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
I guess I don't understand where the rational part comes into play. It seems to me that the reactions are just as liekly as to be intuitive. Rational implies thinking it through. Or is this not what is meant?
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I don't really think automatic hardwired reactions would ever be variable enough to account for this type of thing. Hardwired automatic responses would take many generations to be selected for. There are so many different situations that might occur in an apes life that it would just not be possible to hardwire for every possible possability. But if some general principle are hardwired and the brain itslef had adapeted to the very useful trick of inference and abstraction then phenomona like the ones shown here would be expected. I think this adaptablity shows clearly that other animals have adapted in this way in a similar way to humans. They can abstract, they can understand the intent of others and they can use this to infer things about the world in a flexible and rational way.
What is meant by rational behavior? If the ape was always fed with similar containers, would it look to the keeper for cues to with one contained the good stuff? What makes an elbow or flopping hand the cue to go for a particular container?
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I wasn't trying to answer the rational part. I was just wondering if your anthropmorphism comment was misapplied.
I've seen too many humans act in ways that I wonder if animals look at them and think, "Damn. I'm glad they're not in my species."
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
LOL. So true. Sometime I look at humans and think "Damn. Are they really my species?"
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I think there is a control container that is not touched, the other container is then touched either accidently or with intent.
If a human indicates a container the primates think it will be the more interesting/useful one. The results back this up in that the container touched with intent is favoured statistically compared to the accidental touching. The chimps read the accidental touch as less significant than the purposeful one i.e. they expect the keeper to behave rationally!
The other example has a human performing an irrational (but intended) action (touching using elbow but with free hands) the primates pay less attention to this as it is irrational.
The flopping hand is not a cue but an accident....meant to be ignored.
The elbow is only a cue when the keepers hands are full as then it becomes a rational thing to use.
However, either erroneous actions could be seen as signals! as they both 'point' to a particular container via sound/motion. The chimps show an understanding of the keepers actions and expect them to be rational.
I really see this as cut and dry and would have expected the result.
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.
SOmtimes, I look at dolphins killing a mother's calf so the mother has a reason to consumate and think "GENIOUS!"
" Why does God always got such wacky shit to say? . . . When was the last time you heard somebody say 'look God told me to get a muffin and a cup tea and cool out man'?" - Dov Davidoff
Great stuff.
I thought the article was interesting and didn't see anything wrong with it at all. Actually, the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking of Susan Savage-Rumbaugh's TED lecture about bonobos:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/76
If anyone could watch that presentation and still be convinced that animals are nothing but instinct, I'd be impressed. But not in a good way.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
For anyone concerned with the methodology of this study, I've got a couple of suggestions. First, just try looking up the authors and see if you can google their ".edu" email, or whatever the equivalent is. Email them and ask for the full study. It's been released, and most scientists are very happy when their work is actually read.
If that doesn't pan out, go to the nearest university you can find and go to the psychology department and ask the department secretary which professor would deal with this kind of thing. Professors are extremely good resources, and can tell you where to go to get your hands on studies.
In any case, stuff like this isn't released flippantly. They have lots and lots of hoops to jump through to ensure that their study is answering the questions being asked. First year requirements all over the world include research methods. Among other things, RM teaches you to isolate exactly the variable you're looking for in an experiment.
It's a long way around to say that I feel really certain that the researchers thought of your objection before they even started designing the experiment, wave. I bet if you read the study, you'll find rather elaborate reasoning behind the way they did it.
[edit: FEH... I just noticed that the article says which journal the findings are being released in. Just go to any university library. They'll have it.]
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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