Greg Detre
Sunday, February 09, 2003
J. Call & M. Tomasello "The effect of humans on the cognitive development of apes". In Reaching into Thought (eds. A.E. Russou, K. A. Bard and S. T. Parker). Cambridge University Press (1996). pp 371--403.
A. Meltzoff and A. Gopnik "The role of imitation in
understanding persons and developing a theory of mind". In Understanding
other minds: perspectives from autism (eds. S. Baron-cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg,
D. Cohen) Oxford
University Press (1993). Chapter 16 pp 335--366.
Categories
of upbringing:
wild
captive
nursery-raised
laboratory-trained
home-raised
Great ape
species: chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutangs, gorillas
Major
domains in which ape physical cognition has been studied:
object permanence
object manipulation
tool use
categorisation
|
Domain |
Effect
of interaction with humans |
|
Object permanence |
Interaction
with humans not necessary |
|
Object manipulation, tool use, mirror use,
symbolic play |
Exposure to human artifacts and emulation of their use leads to quantative
increases in knowledge of objects and their properties and dynamic
affordances. May occur in many types of captive environments. |
|
Categorisation/classification, quantitative
skills |
Interaction
with humans not necessary for natural categorisation, but some training may be necessary for explicit
classification and quantification based on abstract properties (e.g. training
in attention management skills). Typically occurs in laboratory environments. |
|
Social attention, social referencing,
understanding visual gaze |
Interaction
with humans not necessary |
|
Intentional communication, imitative
learning, understanding intentions |
Being
enculturated by humans may
lead to an understanding of others as intentional and thus to qualitatively
more human-like skills of social learning and intentional communication.
Typically occurs only in home-raised environments. |
|
Cooperation, teaching, understanding beliefs |
Human
interaction has no significant effect because human-like skills in these
domains may not be attainable by apes of any kinds |