Posted on 06/18/2008 7:53:50 PM PDT by blam
Great Apes Think Ahead: Conclusive Evidence Of Advanced Planning Capacities
In a series of four experiments, Mathias and Helena Osvath investigated whether chimpanzees and orangutans could override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and therefore demonstrate both self-control and the ability to plan ahead, rather than simply fulfill immediate needs through impulsive behavior. (Credit: iStockphoto/Michael Steden)
ScienceDaily (Jun. 19, 2008) — Apes can plan for their future needs just as we humans can – by using self-control and imagining future events. Mathias and Helena Osvath’s research, from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden, is the first to provide conclusive evidence of advanced planning capacities in non-human species.
The complex skill of future planning is commonly believed to be exclusive to humans, and has not yet been convincingly established in any living primate species other than our own. In humans, planning for future needs relies heavily on two mental capacities: self-control or the suppression of immediate drives in favor of delayed rewards; and mental time travel or the detached mental experience of a past or future event.
In a series of four experiments, Mathias and Helena Osvath investigated whether chimpanzees and orangutans could override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and therefore demonstrate both self-control and the ability to plan ahead, rather than simply fulfill immediate needs through impulsive behavior.
Two female chimpanzees and one male orangutan, from Lund University Primate Research Station at Furuvik Zoo, were shown a hose and how to use it to extract fruit soup. They were then tempted with their favorite fruit alongside the hose to test their ability to suppress the choice of the immediate reward (favorite fruit) in favor of a tool (the hose) that would lead to a larger reward 70 minutes later on (the fruit soup). The apes chose the hose more frequently than their favorite fruit suggesting that they are able to make choices in favor of future needs, even when they directly compete with an immediate reward.
New tools the apes had not encountered before were then introduced: one new functional tool which would work in a similar way to the hose, and two distractor objects. The apes consciously chose the new functional tool more often and took it to the reward room later on, where they used it appropriately, demonstrating that they selected the tool based on its functional properties. According to the authors, this indicates that the apes were pre-experiencing a future event i.e. visualizing the use of the new tool to extract the fruit soup.
One of the decisive experiments excluded associative learning* as an explanation of the results. Associative learning has been suggested to account for the findings in previous planning studies on animals (corvids and great apes), and therefore the previous studies have not been generally accepted as evidence for non-human planning.
Taken together these results strongly suggest that great apes engage in planning for the future. The authors conclude that “the results of this study entail that capacities central to humans evolved much earlier than previously believed.”
*A learning principle based on the belief that ideas and experiences reinforce one another and can be mentally linked to enhance the learning process.
Journal reference:
Osvath et al. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use. Animal Cognition, 2008 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-008-0157-0 Adapted from materials provided by Springer.
Consolation behaviour in chimps may well be an expression of empathy. (Credit: Image courtesy of Liverpool John Moores University)
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "Gravity: Not Just a Good Idea, It's the Law"
So did my cat. He’d wait until we were in bed before he would jump up on the counter and look for morsels and sink water.
Maybe Democrats could learn something.
Apes are smart?
Wow, so throwing their crap/feces at the crowd must be a sign of intelligence...just like Democrats.
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(Credit: Image courtesy of Liverpool John Moores University)
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Interesting cultural sidebar...
meet the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University since April 2007:
Brian May, guitarist of Queen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May
Sounds like how a chipmunk spends all summer filling his burrow with seeds and nuts.
It sure is...like one of the Doobie Brothers working for the CIA or some such.
Is May queer?
How do they explain squirrels?
That would make an interesting experiment. Are apes more intelligent than liberal democrats.
My hypothesis is in some ways, yes.
You said it!
This is another of those scientific experiments designed to prove that humans are not really different from animals. Here we have a case of an ape that was willing to wait for a delicious treat, not a case of an ape planning ahead.
The conclusion that “Apes can plan ahead” was the desired conclusion and the experiment was arranged so as to produce the desired outcome.
The flaw is that the experimenter assumed that the ape was planning ahead. It’s possible that the ape fooled around with the “tool” and then was very happy later to receive the delicious fruit soup.
That doesn’t prove that the ape was planning ahead.
The difference between animals and humans is that humans are very much more intelligent than animals.
Let’s see an ape plan for his retirement. Will the ape put away 10% of the bananas that it finds instead of eating them? Will the ape even know what I’m talking about?
I would be really impressed if apes could be trained to do work entirely unrelated to the obtaining of food (or delicious treats) in exchange for poker chips that they can then trade in at the Zoo commissary for food, or save up to buy delicious treats.
Humans are animals, by definition.
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