Chimpanzee minds: suspiciously human?

Chimpanzees undoubtedly form concepts related to the statistical regularities in behavior. But do they also construe such abstractions in terms of mental states – that is, do they possess a ‘theory of mind’? Although both anecdotal and experimental data have been marshaled to support this idea, we s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTrends in cognitive sciences Vol. 7; no. 4; pp. 157 - 160
Main Authors Povinelli, Daniel J., Vonk, Jennifer
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2003
Elsevier
Subjects
Animal ethology
Biological and medical sciences
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Mammalia
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Vertebrata
Vertebrata
Mammalia
Animal
Pan paniscus
Monkey
Primates
Simioidea
Critical study
Pan troglodytes
Theory of mind
Social cognition
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Summary:Chimpanzees undoubtedly form concepts related to the statistical regularities in behavior. But do they also construe such abstractions in terms of mental states – that is, do they possess a ‘theory of mind’? Although both anecdotal and experimental data have been marshaled to support this idea, we show that no explanatory power or economy of expression is gained by such an assumption. We suggest that additional experiments will be unhelpful as long as they continue to rely upon determining whether subjects interpret behavioral invariances in terms of mental states. We propose a paradigm shift to overcome this limitation.
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ISSN:1364-6613
1879-307X
DOI:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00053-6