Apes plan ahead

[Martin]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000C4698-F1DE-146C-B1DE83414B7F0000&ref=rss

 

To me this seems no big deal. Why shouldn't they? Anyway the reported result is that apes think ahead: they prepare for the future.

 

Not not just a few minutes from now, either. The experiment had them thinking ahead so as to get rewards the next morning.

 

The two researchers sounded quite proud of their simian friends' accomplishments:

 

"Apes selected, transported and saved a suitable tool not because they currently needed it but because they would need it in the future," the authors write in the paper presenting the research in today's Science.

[Martin]

Re-reading this I see it needs editing. The names and nationality of the researchers are not relevant (and are given in the main body of the article). So the next-to-last sentence should read

 

The two researchers sounded quite proud of their simian friends' accomplishments:

 

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maybe I will join the News team, if it means i get to do minor editing of an item the next morning. Would that be acceptable, Cap'n?

 

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You know this research IS important in a certain way----it used to be a kind of dogma that humans were unique in being able to IMAGINE the future, and more generally in their ability to imagine situations that they were not immediately confronting. I remember having this explained to me at some length. It was supposed to be connected with our ability to do IF-THEN logic. Animals only live in the present moment and can't imagine situations they don't immediately face. They don't do logic like we do. And so on. What they do that looks purposeful is hardwired instinct, etc.

 

But the clearcut distinctions seem to be softening some these days and getting fuzzed. Some apes in the wild appear to have a culture, pass along useful technology, different tribes of the same species develop different patterns of relations between the sexes, different ways of handling conflict. Cases of altruism have been observed, as well as unexpected nastiness among types thought to be peaceful. So many preconceptions seem to be eroding as people look closer.

 

It may even extend beyond just apes. Is it possible that birds think? At least some birds? This experiment about these provident foresightful bonobo seems to be part of an overall trend. Have you seen other stuff along these lines?

[gcol]

This almost qualifies for the useless pseudo-scientific toy theory of the month. When squirels bury nuts for a hard winter, ants and bees store food for similar purposes, why is this not similar evidence of forward thinking? Please, these kings of academia are stark boll**k naked. Give them their due, though, they recognise an easy research grant when they see one. They are as cunning and oportunistic as an ape....almost.

[ecoli]

I agree with gcol, this doesn't seems like a very innovative study.

[SmallIsPower]

Apes have the intellgence of small kids, and kids can do some clever things too. All you have to do is turn on the news to see how arrorogant and full-of-ourselves humans are this would point to the possiblity that we are overestimating our uniqueness.

[padren]

This almost qualifies for the useless pseudo-scientific toy theory of the month. When squirels bury nuts for a hard winter, ants and bees store food for similar purposes, why is this not similar evidence of forward thinking? Please, these kings of academia are stark boll**k naked. Give them their due, though, they recognise an easy research grant when they see one. They are as cunning and oportunistic as an ape....almost.

 

I agree there is a risk of making that sort of mistake, but I don't think it is a good comparison. Squirrels hide nuts instinctively, then dig them up instinctively, and survive better for it.

 

These apes did not have an instinctive drive to bring that specific tool at a time that would just happen to be useful later. Therefore it sounds like evidence of planning ahead based via their congitive functions, as opposed to preparing ahead based on a survival instinct.

[herpguy]

I edited your post to the way you wanted it, Martin.

[Martin]

HERPGUY THANKS for the kind editing. It is more seemly now. I hope 'twas not too much bother.

 

I agree there is a risk of making that sort of mistake' date=' but I don't think it is a good comparison. Squirrels hide nuts instinctively, then dig them up instinctively, and survive better for it.

 

These apes did not have an instinctive drive to bring that specific tool at a time that would just happen to be useful later. Therefore it sounds like evidence of planning ahead based via their congitive functions, as opposed to preparing ahead based on a survival instinct.[/quote']

 

thanks padren! I think you have spotted something.

 

thinking ahead in a completely new situation ( a fruit machine one will encounter the next morning, that only works with a particular tool----which is like the key to that machine-----and a bunch of other tools which superficially resemble the right one, but which will not work)

 

one has to have INTENTIONS and a future projection of the situation, which one has recently encountered on a previous morning. One has to recognize the correct tool and take the tool along to whereever one sleeps and then remember to bring it with one in the morning.

 

this is not like the marvellous ability of squirrels to bury nuts and find them, and not like the marvellous ability of spiders to weave webs, they had millions of years to learn to do that. when you are one of these apes you have JUST A FEW HOURS to figure the game out.

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years ago I read some speculation that the ability to do conditional logic and imagine the future-----to say "if this then that" and to PLAN----that this ability had something to do with the ability to use LANGUAGE as something more than an emotional signal: a simple warning, or threat, or cry for food, or territorial song, or way to keep in touch. Those are language used only in the "now".

 

something that can perform conditional logic, and plan ahead flexibly, this article was saying, COULD ALSO CONSTRUCT flexible complex SENTENCES.

 

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so even though there is a comic element of these two experimenters and their planful apes, I think I will remember this as having taught me something. I am glad they did this one.

[herpguy]

I actually enjoy editing people's posts [sinister laugh].

 

 

I agree with Martin and padren. Though I am not supprised, I still find it remarkable that these apes can rely on experience over instinct like humans.

[sabbath]

Don't we sometimes provide animals with the necessary stimuli to act beyond instinct? Don't we ourselves condition animals against their own instincts?

[blike]

Please, these kings of academia are stark boll**k naked. Give them their due, though, they recognise an easy research grant when they see one.

I don't know anything about the paper, nor did I read it. However, it is being published in Science, so I would suggest you at least read it and see what the authors have to say before you pass such confident judgement.

[gcol]

http://www.newtechusa.com/humor/higherprimate.asp

 

Now this one is far more "interesting"

 

It shows that even monkeys can program computers, and they work for peanuts, too (bananas?).

 

If they can do that, then carrying a stick is easy-peasy.

[Dr. Dalek]

Don't we sometimes provide animals with the necessary stimuli to act beyond instinct? Don't we ourselves condition animals against their own instincts?

Perhaps; however I think that they have to have some cognitive abilities to go against their instinct, we do not create the cognitive abilities we just creat circumstance in which they will appaer and be observable. Similar circumstances probably occur in nature

[Mokele]

I think many people in this thread overestimate the ease of working with animal behavior, especially when trying to infer underlying mental processes. The reason experiment such as these are important is that they demonstrate *solid* evidence of long-term planning.

 

Anyone can say "oh, of course they plan" but without any actual *evidence*, and real science relies on evidence. The problem is that the more complex the behavior or presumed mental state, the more you have to rule out. For instance, gcol brought up squirrels burying nuts, yet this is clearly instinct, and likely not the product of actual planning. So in order to test for planning you have to present a novel situation, one to which the animals cannot be already adapted to deal with. On top of this, you have to be able to rule out learning or routine; are they keeping a stick for planning purposes, or because they've just classically or operantly conditioned to associate the stick with food? On top of *that* you have to rule out factors such as the stick being used as a toy, weapon, toothpick, or anything else that would mean it would be kept for other reasons.

 

*That* is what makes this so difficult; not what you have to do, but what you have to rule out. You have to create a situation in which you can rule out a huge array of complicating variables. The fact that it can be done is almost as amazing as the results.

 

Mokele