And that monkey ... know your intentions? And speaking of knowing that the other knows, say, how do you know if the other knows, or if you know what your intentions ... In this blog we've talked several times about the problem of theory of mind. For now Martin Schmelz, Josep Call and Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck for Evolutionary Anthropology Instituto, recently published an article in the February of this year Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences on whether chimpanzees are able to tell if a monkey has made any inference. This topic is very interesting because we've never had gathered no evidence that any other animal, besides humans, could do this kind of reasoning.
This group of researchers had previously published research which suggested that chimpanzees chimpanzees know if others have some information or not, that is, if you know what others know. For example showed that a chimpanzee can correctly infer what another chimpanzee made just before, not based on the conduct of another chimp, but what another chimpanzee had seen before. In that experiment they put a chimp in front of another, each in its little cage. In the middle of the cages the researchers placed three trays. Then the researchers put food in two of them, and he left the monkey "to" get food from one of the buckets. Immediately after the monkey "B" could get the food in any of the basins and, obviously, as this monkey had seen the monkey first choose "A", then went back and chose the bucket that had not chosen "A".
En el segundo experimento que era el crítico, los investigadores ponían comida en una cubeta mientras ambos monos miraban. Luego tapaban la puerta de “A” para que ese mono no mirara, y entonces ponían comida en una segunda cubeta mientras “B” miraba que como la ponían, además de mirar la puerta de “A” tapada. Ahora, los resultados aqui son los interesantes: Si “B” escogía antes de “A”, entonces “B” escogía el mismo número de veces cualquiera de las dos cubetas. Pero si “A” escogía la comida primero (mientras “B” tenia su propia puerta tapada para que no viera de que cubeta escogía "A") then "B" tended to choose the cell in which the food had been when "A" had blocked his door. As mentioned above, the researchers concluded that "B" followed that as "A" had only seen it put food on the first bucket, then "B" will surely choose the cell in which "A" had not seen it put food . That would mean that "B" thought about the intentions of "A" and based on that thought, "B" guided his behavior toward the basin where only "B" had been to set out food.
Discovering whether chimpanzees
make inferences about what others think chimpanzees.
Now, in his most recent publication researchers do a new variation. When you put a peanut under a planchette on a table, as the planchette is inclined by the presence of peanuts. However if there is peanut, as the table is flat on the table. The researchers had already found that monkeys learn that if the table is tilted, you can find a peanut in there, but if this flat, there is nothing. In their new study, researchers use this strategy to assess whether the monkeys assume that monkeys also learns that if over the board is tilted, possibly there is food underneath. For this experiment, the researchers relocated to chimpanzees facing each other, while between the two cages left the room to put the pleats. So in this experiment the monkey "B" looked while putting food under a planchette remained tilted. In addition also watching you put food under another planchette, but it had a hole through which food could, but towards the board to be flat on the table. Meanwhile, the single "A" which was in front, had all the time covered the door to not see the process of placing you restart. After that, he blocked the view to the monkey "B" and let him choose first the monkey "A".
What they found?
The researchers reasoned that the response of "B" would be guided by what "B" thought were the actions of "A". If "B" was not thinking about what would "A", then choose either over the board tilted or flat. But if "B" thought "A" knew that underneath the slanted pleats usually have food, then "B" try to go for food hidden in the hole over the board flat. For what the researchers found is that when "B" chose after "A", in effect, "B" down the number of responses to the inclined board and would choose the flat board, with only "B" I knew there was food. Remember that "B" never saw that table had chosen "A".
The authors discuss at the end that if we define "think" like going over there to the information given by the mere perception to make inferences, then their experiments suggest that chimpanzees also can do. It would be interesting to think about how often and in what situations we make such inferences, which, in a very basic, can also chimpanzees.