Related Experiment Videos
Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) understand single invisible displacement?
Emma Collier-Baker1, Joanne M Davis, Mark Nielsen
1Early Cognitive Development Unit, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia. e.collier-baker@psy.uq.edu.au
Animal Cognition
|September 16, 2005
Summary
Chimpanzees demonstrate an understanding of invisible displacement, a cognitive ability previously observed in young children. Controlled experiments ruled out simple search strategies, supporting mental representation in apes.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Ethology
- Comparative Psychology
- Primate Cognition
Background:
- The Piagetian invisible displacement task assesses mental representation.
- Previous studies suggest chimpanzees grasp single invisible displacements.
- Concerns exist that simple search strategies, not mental representation, explain performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To differentiate between associative search strategies and genuine mental representation in chimpanzees.
- To investigate chimpanzee understanding of single invisible displacement.
- To compare chimpanzee cognitive abilities to human infants.
Main Methods:
- Two chimpanzees participated in the study.
- Four control conditions were implemented to exclude simple search strategies.
- Experimenter cue-use, last/first box search, and adjacent box search were controlled.
Main Results:
- Chimpanzees did not employ simple search strategies.
- Performance was not explained by associative learning or cue-use.
- Results indicate sophisticated cognitive abilities in chimpanzees.
Conclusions:
- Chimpanzees' ability to mentally represent single invisible displacements is supported.
- This capacity appears comparable to that of 18-24-month-old human children.
- Findings advance our understanding of non-human primate cognition and theory of mind.