Great apes and theory of mind

Great apes can use their past perceptual experience to infer another agent’s belief about an object’s location, a study suggests. Theory of mind refers to the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others. Fumihiro Kano and colleagues used a stringent false belief test to determine whether great apes have theory of mind or whether they merely use behavioral cues to predict others’ actions. The authors randomly assigned chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans to become familiar either with an opaque barrier or with a translucent barrier, both of which looked identical from afar. Next, the apes watched a video showing the same events. First, a human disguised as an ape hid an object under one of two boxes in front of a human actor. Then, the actor moved behind a barrier that looked identical to the ones the apes had seen. While the actor was away, the ape-like character removed the object and left the scene. Finally, the actor returned to the scene and reached ambiguously between the two boxes. Unlike apes that were familiar with the translucent barrier, apes familiar with the opaque barrier looked longer at the box where the object was originally hidden, as if anticipating that the actor would mistakenly look there. According to the authors, the findings suggest that great apes can use past perceptual experience to infer another agent’s belief about an object’s location.

Article #19-10095: “Great apes use self-experience to anticipate an agent’s action in a false-belief test,” by Fumihiro Kano, Christopher Krupenye, Satoshi Hirata, Masaki Tomonaga, and Josep Call.

MEDIA CONTACT: Fumihiro Kano, Kyoto University, JAPAN; e-mail:

[email protected]

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This part of information is sourced from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/potn-gaa092519.php

Fumihiro Kano

[email protected]

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