Recognizing impossible object relations: intuitions about support in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Using looking-time measures, the authors examined untrained chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) ability to distinguish between adequate and inadequate support. In 3 experiments, the chimpanzees' sensitivity to different support relations between 2 objects was assessed. In each experiment, the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of comparative psychology (1983) Vol. 118; no. 2; p. 140
Main Authors Cacchione, Trix, Krist, Horst
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.06.2004
Subjects
Age Factors
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Cognition
Female
Intuition
Male
Pan troglodytes
Videotape Recording
Visual Perception
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Summary:Using looking-time measures, the authors examined untrained chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) ability to distinguish between adequate and inadequate support. In 3 experiments, the chimpanzees' sensitivity to different support relations between 2 objects was assessed. In each experiment, the chimpanzees saw a possible and an impossible test event, presented as digital video clips. Looking times in the 3 experiments suggest that chimpanzees use amount of contact between 2 objects, but not type of contact, to distinguish between adequate and inadequate support relations. These results indicate that chimpanzees have some intuition about support phenomena but their sensitivity to relational object properties may differ from that of human infants (Homo sapiens) in this domain.
ISSN:0735-7036
DOI:10.1037/0735-7036.118.2.140