Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) Use Water as a Tool in the Floating Object Task

DeLong, Caroline M.; Burnett, C J

doi:10.26451/abc.07.03.05.2020

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…That is, one can potentially solve the task by rearranging the key elements that were already present without engaging in genuine innovation. However, subsequent studies using a dry tube -thus removing the initial perceptual cues- debunked this interpretation (DeLong et al 2020 ; Ebel et al 2019b ; Hanus et al 2011 ). Some naïve chimpanzees and orangutans were able to solve the dry version of the FPT.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Raising the level: orangutans solve the floating peanut task without visual feedback

et al. 2021

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Chimpanzees and orangutans are able to generate innovative behaviors to solve complicated physical problems. For example, when presented with an out-of-reach peanut at the bottom of a vertical tube (floating peanut task—FPT), some of them spontaneously spit water into the tube until the peanut floats to the top. Yet, it is unclear whether this innovative solution results from repeating those actions that bring the peanut incrementally closer to the top or from anticipating the solution before acting. In the current study, we addressed this question by presenting three naïve orangutans with an opaque version of the FPT that prevented them from obtaining visual information about the effect of their actions on the position of the peanut. One of the subjects solved the opaque FPT in the very first trial: he collected water from the faucet and poured it into the opaque tube repeatedly until the hitherto non-visible peanut reached the top. This provides evidence for the first time that orangutans can potentially solve the FPT without relying on sensorimotor learning, but to some extent by mentally representing the problem.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Raising the level: orangutans solve the floating peanut task without visual feedback

et al. 2021

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Can Comparative Psychology Crack its Toughest Nut?

Povinelli¹

2020

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What is the likelihood that humans will ever determine if other animals engage in higher-order thinking? In examining what has happened in the twenty years since the publication of our book, Folk Physics for Apes, I conclude that comparative psychologists, the academic stalwarts charged with making progress on this front, are stuck in a series of intractable, and largely unacknowledged, conceptual problems. Because higher-order mental states depend on the existence of first-order, perceptually-based representations of objects and events, and because those first-order representations are necessary and sufficient to explain current experimental and observational results, the approaches deployed by comparative psychologists are doomed to failure. I examine this Asymmetric Dependency Problem in detail and show how the failure to confront its implications leads to viciously circular arguments that cannot be fixed within the current paradigm of research. Next, I offer a seven-step method for isolating the common structural flaw in any given experiment, and work through several examples. Finally, I examine the central claims that my colleagues and I made in Folk Physics through the lens of the Asymmetric Dependency Problem and current research trends. Although the optimism we expressed that experimental approaches could implicate the presence of higher-order thinking in animals requires considerable dampening, the challenges we isolated remain as vital today as they were twenty years ago.

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Bornean Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) Use Water as a Tool in the Floating Object Task

Cited by 2 publications

References 30 publications

Raising the level: orangutans solve the floating peanut task without visual feedback

Raising the level: orangutans solve the floating peanut task without visual feedback

Can Comparative Psychology Crack its Toughest Nut?

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