Social cognition and metacognition in great apes: a theory

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago, at the founding of this journal, there existed only a few conflicting findings about great apes’ social-cognitive skills (theory of mind). In the 2 ½ decades since, we have discovered that great apes understand the goals, intentions, perceptions, and knowledge of others, and they use this knowledge to their advantage in competitive interactions. Twenty-five years ago there existed basically no studies on great apes’ metacognitive skills. In the 2 ½ decades since, we have discovered that great apes monitor their uncertainty and base their decisions on that, or else decide to gather more information to make better decisions. The current paper reviews the past 25 years of research on great ape social cognition and metacognition and proposes a theory about how the two are evolutionarily related.

Socio-cultural brain reprogramming–The uniqueness of human cognition

“…One hypothesis suggests that great apes possess cognitive abilities similar to humans, but their primary function is competition rather than cooperation (cf. Cheney and Seyfarth, 2007;Tomasello, 2023). In other words, their ability to read the minds of others may be used in the context of cooperation, but the main goal is competition.…”

Anthropomorphism as a contributor to the success of human (Homo sapiens) tool use.

“…Candidates for machination in nonhumans would be individuals of species that combine highly evolved sociality with regular object manipulation, and the clearest evidence would involve the treatment of objects as needy beings. Unambiguous evidence for an understanding of nonself goals is currently lacking for most species, but captive great apes have repeatedly shown this ability (Tomasello, 2022). Wild chimpanzee stick and orangutan leaf “dolls” are therefore candidates for nonhuman animal machination (Bastian et al, 2012; Kahlenberg & Wrangham, 2010), and evidence for “favorite” or reused tools could be another (Carvalho et al, 2009).…”

Children of time: the geological recency of intelligence and its implications for SETI

“…A vast literature attests to the social intelligence (e.g. de Waal, 1982;Tomasello and Call, 1994;Tomasello, 2022), flexible problem-solving (e.g. Emery and Clayton, 2004;Schmitt et al, 2012), culture (e.g.…”