Book contents
- Primate Cognitive Studies
- Primate Cognitive Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Purpose of Primate Cognitive Studies
- 2 A History of Primates Studying Primates
- 3 Genetic and Environmental Influences on Chimpanzee Brain and Cognition
- 4 The Evolution of Cognition in Primates, Including Humans
- 5 State of the Field
- 6 Current Perspectives on Primate Perception
- 7 The Comparative Study of Categorization
- 8 Numerical Cognition in Nonhuman Primates
- 9 The Natural History of Primate Spatial Cognition
- 10 Progress and Prospects in Primate Tool Use and Cognition
- 11 Sequencing, Artificial Grammar, and Recursion in Primates
- 12 The Evolution of Episodic Cognition
- 13 Metacognition
- 14 Bridging the Conceptual Gap between Inferential Reasoning and Problem Solving in Primates
- 15 The Eyes Have It
- 16 Social Cooperation in Primates
- 17 Primate Communication
- 18 Theory of Mind in Nonhuman Primates
- 19 A Requiem for Ape Language Research
- 20 Primate Empathy
- 21 Replication and Reproducibility in Primate Cognition Research
- 22 Ethical Considerations in Conducting Primate Cognition Research
- 23 Collaboration and Open Science Initiatives in Primate Research
- 24 Studying Primate Cognition
- 25 Do Monkeys Belong in the Ape House?
- Index
- References
18 - Theory of Mind in Nonhuman Primates
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2022
- Primate Cognitive Studies
- Primate Cognitive Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Purpose of Primate Cognitive Studies
- 2 A History of Primates Studying Primates
- 3 Genetic and Environmental Influences on Chimpanzee Brain and Cognition
- 4 The Evolution of Cognition in Primates, Including Humans
- 5 State of the Field
- 6 Current Perspectives on Primate Perception
- 7 The Comparative Study of Categorization
- 8 Numerical Cognition in Nonhuman Primates
- 9 The Natural History of Primate Spatial Cognition
- 10 Progress and Prospects in Primate Tool Use and Cognition
- 11 Sequencing, Artificial Grammar, and Recursion in Primates
- 12 The Evolution of Episodic Cognition
- 13 Metacognition
- 14 Bridging the Conceptual Gap between Inferential Reasoning and Problem Solving in Primates
- 15 The Eyes Have It
- 16 Social Cooperation in Primates
- 17 Primate Communication
- 18 Theory of Mind in Nonhuman Primates
- 19 A Requiem for Ape Language Research
- 20 Primate Empathy
- 21 Replication and Reproducibility in Primate Cognition Research
- 22 Ethical Considerations in Conducting Primate Cognition Research
- 23 Collaboration and Open Science Initiatives in Primate Research
- 24 Studying Primate Cognition
- 25 Do Monkeys Belong in the Ape House?
- Index
- References
Summary
Social life demands complex strategies for coordinating and competing with others. In humans, these strategies are supported by rich cognitive mechanisms, such as theory of mind. Theory of mind (i.e., mental state attribution, mentalizing, or mindreading) is the ability to track the unobservable mental states, like desires and beliefs, that guide others’ actions. Deeply social animals, like most nonhuman primates, would surely benefit from the adept capacity to interpret and predict others’ behavior that theory of mind affords. Yet, after forty years of investigation, the extent to which nonhuman primates represent the minds of others remains a topic of contentious debate. In the present chapter, we review evidence consistent with the possibility that monkeys and apes are capable of inferring others’ goals, perceptions, and beliefs. We then evaluate the quality of that evidence and point to the most prominent alternative explanations to be addressed by future research. Finally, we take a more broadly phylogenetic perspective, to identify evolutionary modifications to social cognition that have emerged throughout primate evolutionary history and to consider the selective pressures that may have driven those modifications. Taken together, this approach sheds light on the complex mechanisms that define the social minds of humans and other primates.
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- Primate Cognitive Studies , pp. 439 - 482Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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