Theory of Mind

Theory of Mind

attribution of intention, mindreading

difficult to separate cognitive and behavioral accounts of theory of mind in animals

Simple Deception

eye spots on moths

Complex Deception: Monkeys

Whiten & Byrne develop a taxonomy of deception

write to experts in the field asking if they notice any signs of deception in their animals

concealment: chimpanzees cover their errection in the presence of older males, monkey would accidentally walk over a piece of food and pick it up

distraction: monkey attacks a younger monkey which screams, older monkey looks into the distance when pack arrives, female distracting male with grooming to steal food

creating an image: monkey hurts his hand in a fight with another monkey, only feigns pain when other monkey is present

Bernstein: the plural of anecdote is not data

Plovers and Deictic Gazing (Ristau, 1990)

observation: mother will fly away and get the attention of an intruder, makes the intruder think she is helpless and to attack her instead of the chicks, flies away when intruder attacks

method: human intruder walks between ocean and sand dunes, will either look at ocean or at sand dunes

result: plovers engage in the broken wing display more when the human is looking towards the sand dunes

conclusion: plovers are susceptible to deictic gaze, could have learned that eyes looking at it is more dangerous than eyes not looking at it

Chicks, Death Feigning, and Deictic Gaze (Gallup, 1972)

method: make chicks death feign, would either watch them afterwards or not

results: chicks took longer to wake up when you were staring at them than if you weren’t

conclusion: chicks haven’t learned that eyes looking at them is a bad thing so it could be evidence for theory of mind

Woodruff and Premack (1979): Intentional Deception

method: 4 chimps, cooperative trainer and competitive trainer very distinct, passive aide accompanied the chimps

apparatus: room within a room, two containers with food concealed under one, assistant shows chimp where the food is, takes it out of room and change to passive aide, cooperative or competitive trainer enters the room and so does chimp, if chimp points the cooperative trainer to the baited container the chimp gets food, opposite for competitive

results: chimp readily learned to cue the cooperative trainer and suppress cuing the competttive trainer, 2/4 chimps learned to misinform the competitive trainer

comprehension test: role reversal, ¾ chimps learned to avoid the container cued by the competitive trainer, evidence for theory of mind, however it took forever for them to learn so might just be learning