Through a Floppy Tool Darkly

Povinelli, Daniel J.; Penn, Derek C.

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571154.003.0004

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…The current literature, therefore, provides some evidence that primates such as chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys can learn about objects through exploration [ 21 , 22 ], and even change their exploratory behaviour to gain information about potential tools, though the degree to which this involves abstract representations of object properties such as weight and rigidity remains a matter for debate [ 29 , 30 ]). Our study aimed to determine whether (i) information about object properties is gained through exploration and can be applied in a problem-solving context; and (ii) if knowledge about the potential use of an object as a tool changes exploratory behaviour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Function and flexibility of object exploration in kea and New Caledonian crows

et al. 2017

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A range of non-human animals frequently manipulate and explore objects in their environment, which may enable them to learn about physical properties and potentially form more abstract concepts of properties such as weight and rigidity. Whether animals can apply the information learned during their exploration to solve novel problems, however, and whether they actually change their exploratory behaviour to seek functional information about objects have not been fully explored. We allowed kea (Nestor notabilis) and New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) to explore sets of novel objects both before and after encountering a task in which some of the objects could function as tools. Following this, subjects were given test trials in which they could choose among the objects they had explored to solve a tool-use task. Several individuals from both species performed above chance on these test trials, and only did so after exploring the objects, compared with a control experiment with no prior exploration phase. These results suggest that selection of functional tools may be guided by information acquired during exploration. Neither kea nor crows changed the duration or quality of their exploration after learning that the objects had a functional relevance, suggesting that birds do not adjust their behaviour to explicitly seek this information.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Function and flexibility of object exploration in kea and New Caledonian crows

et al. 2017

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“…Woodward's last clause hedges his conclusion about the seeming failure of animals to integrate causal representations, but other scholars (Heyes, 2018b;Papineau & Heyes, 2006;Penn & Povinelli, 2007;Povinelli & Penn, 2011) are convinced that no animals have the kind of abstract, allocentric, rational and explicit representations of causal relations attributed to human adults and children (see Gopnik et al, 2004 for evidence of causal reasoning in children). Attempts by comparative psychologists to experimentally demonstrate causal reasoning in animals have until now been taskdriven, involving interactions with experimenter-designed apparatuses or the capacity of animals to make use of tools.…”

Section: Psychophysics Of Time Perception: a New Approach In Causal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Attempts by comparative psychologists to experimentally demonstrate causal reasoning in animals have until now been taskdriven, involving interactions with experimenter-designed apparatuses or the capacity of animals to make use of tools. Scholars who deny causal understanding to animals claim that the experimental results to date are consistent with a more modest hypothesis; i.e., animals are predisposed to perceive certain clusters of features as more salient than others when selecting among potential actions to achieve specific outcomes (Povinelli & Penn, 2011).…”

Section: Psychophysics Of Time Perception: a New Approach In Causal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ongoing dispute between scholars defending multi-level and two-level views of causal cognition is still very vivid. The former argue that at least some animal species are capable of reasoning about at least some aspects of causality (e.g., Seed et al, 2011;Taylor et al, 2007Taylor et al, , 2010, while the latter insist that animals operate by relying only on perceptual features, or on what Penn and Povinelli refer to as 'perceptually linked reasoning', i.e., first-order relational reasoning over perceptual properties (Penn & Povinelli, 2007Povinelli & Penn, 2011). We note here that 'reasoning' by animals is not the disputed term, since it is also used by Povinelli and colleagues; rather, the dispute is about the format of such reasoning, whether targeted at singlecause-single-effect associations or specifically at representations of causal relations.…”

Section: The Ongoing Dispute In Animal Cognition: Focus On Causal Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal binding: digging into animal minds through time perception

Tramacere

Allen

2022

Synthese

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Temporal binding is the phenomenon in which events related as cause and effect are perceived by humans to be closer in time than they actually are (Haggard et al. in Nat Neurosci 5(4):382–385, 2002, https://doi.org/10.1038/nn827). Despite the fact that temporal binding experiments with humans have relied on verbal instructions, we argue that they are adaptable to nonhuman animals, and that a finding of temporal binding from such experiments would provide evidence of causal reasoning that cannot be reduced to associative learning. Our argument depends on describing and theoretically motivating an intermediate level of representations between the lower levels of associations of sensory features and higher symbolic representations. This intermediate level of representations makes it possible to challenge arguments given by some comparative psychologists that animals lack higher-level abstract and explicit forms of causal reasoning because their cognitive capacities are limited to learning and reasoning at the basic level of perceptual associations. Our multi-level account connects time perception with causal reasoning and provides a philosophically defensible framework for experimental investigations that have not yet been pursued. We describe the structure of some possible experiments and consider the implications that would follow from a positive finding of temporal binding in nonhuman animals. Such a finding would provide evidence of explicit awareness of causal relationships and would warrant attribution of intermediate representations that are more abstract and sophisticated than the associations allowed by the lower level of the two-level account.

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“…These experiments have led to further investigations [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], and there is an ongoing debate (see [ 27 , 28 ]). Povinelli and Penn ([ 29 ], p. 77) conclude that “only humans are capable of second-order relational reasoning, and only humans, therefore, have the cognitive machinery that can support higher-order, theory-like, causal relations”. Johnson-Frey ([ 30 ], p. 201) also writes: “Comparative studies of chimpanzee tool use indicate that critical differences are likely to be found in mechanisms involved in causal reasoning rather than those implementing sensorimotor transformations”.…”

Section: What Is Special About Human Causal Cognition?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Reasoning and Event Cognition as Evolutionary Determinants of Language Structure

Gärdenfors

2021

Entropy

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The aim of this article is to provide an evolutionarily grounded explanation of central aspects of the structure of language. It begins with an account of the evolution of human causal reasoning. A comparison between humans and non-human primates suggests that human causal cognition is based on reasoning about the underlying forces that are involved in events, while other primates hardly understand external forces. This is illustrated by an analysis of the causal cognition required for early hominin tool use. Second, the thinking concerning forces in causation is used to motivate a model of human event cognition. A mental representation of an event contains two vectors representing a cause as well as a result but also entities such as agents, patients, instruments and locations. The fundamental connection between event representations and language is that declarative sentences express events (or states). The event structure also explains why sentences are constituted of noun phrases and verb phrases. Finally, the components of the event representation show up in language, where causes and effects are expressed by verbs, agents and patients by nouns (modified by adjectives), locations by prepositions, etc. Thus, the evolution of the complexity of mental event representations also provides insight into the evolution of the structure of language.

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Through a Floppy Tool Darkly

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

Function and flexibility of object exploration in kea and New Caledonian crows

Function and flexibility of object exploration in kea and New Caledonian crows

Temporal binding: digging into animal minds through time perception

Causal Reasoning and Event Cognition as Evolutionary Determinants of Language Structure

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