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A test of the submentalizing hypothesis: Apes' performance in a false belief task inanimate control
Christopher Krupenye1, Fumihiro Kano2, Satoshi Hirata2
1Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Communicative & Integrative Biology
|September 19, 2017
Summary
Great apes do not appear to use "submentalizing" to infer mental states. New research using an inanimate control in a false-belief task found apes did not anticipate actions based on beliefs.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Animal Behavior
- Primatology
Background:
- Debate exists on whether nonhuman animals share human-like abilities to infer others' mental states, such as beliefs and desires.
- Previous research indicated great apes could pass a false-belief task, suggesting mental state attribution.
- An alternative hypothesis proposed domain-general cueing effects, not social cognition, explained the apes' behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the "submentalizing hypothesis" by implementing an inanimate control in a false-belief task.
- To determine if great apes' anticipatory looking behavior in a false-belief task is driven by social cognitive mechanisms or domain-general cueing.
Main Methods:
- An eye-tracking false-belief task was adapted using an inanimate control.
- Great apes' anticipatory looking behavior was recorded while they observed events in the task.
- Behavior was compared between conditions to assess the role of social cognition versus cueing effects.
Main Results:
- Great apes attended to key events in the task.
- Apes showed significantly fewer anticipatory looks towards the correct location when an inanimate control was used.
- No significant tendency to look at the correct location was observed, failing to support the submentalizing hypothesis.
Conclusions:
- The study found no evidence that submentalizing explains great apes' anticipatory looks in the false-belief task.
- Results suggest that domain-general cueing effects may not be the sole explanation, but social cognitive mechanisms are not supported by this specific control.
- Further research is needed to fully understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying great apes' behavior in theory-of-mind tasks.
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