

Chimpanzees Beat out Children in Reasoning Test 663
caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has a story on how chimpanzees seem to exhibit a better understanding of cause and effect than human children. While training chimps to perform a routine task with redundant steps, the chimps were able to figure out and eliminate the redundant steps, while the human children routinely performed them despite their evident uselessness. It says something about the way we learn compared to chimps and should be interesting to cognitive scientists and those interested in computational learning theory, at the least."
but children will become adults (Score:5, Funny)
Lucky bastards.
Re:but children will become adults (Score:5, Funny)
I am certain it will happen, I just hope its in the next 20 yeas.
Re:but children will become adults (Score:2)
Language (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Language (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it interesting that continuously we prove to ourselves that while apes can't reason, think or act on a human adult level, they are able to do so on a level above or equal the human child/mentally handicaped adult. And yet, we continue to deny them equal rights to children/retards. It says a lot about our society on the whole I think.
Re:Language (Score:3, Funny)
You've got deaf and mute people? Where do you keep them?
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:3, Interesting)
On the Continuing Evolution of Language (Score:5, Funny)
I know that that sounds entroniant, perhaps even bleavisome, but it had to be said.
Re:On the Continuing Evolution of Language (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps they have, and humans just haven't recognized them.
It's entirely possible that they have words for chimp concepts.
For example, they probably have a simple verb that means "to fling my excrement at".
So rather than saying/signing "I flung my excrement at the keeper this morning.", a chimp might say/sign, "I feced the keeper this morning.", where "feced" is a verb meaning "flung my excrement at".
I think that more research should be done into this area, possibly by seeing what sorts of signs/sounds/facial expressions/etc. chimps make to each other shortly after they fling their excrement at people or do other chimp things.
Re:On the Continuing Evolution of Language (Score:4, Funny)
I know that that sounds entroniant, perhaps even bleavisome, but it had to be said.
I'm imbiggened by your cromulent words.
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:5, Interesting)
they of course had their own agenda to push
While research bias (either for or against chimps communicating) is a problem that is difficult to overcome in such a strong issue (for many), I have read quite a bit on the successes. I was referring to an instance where chimpanzee's (or another primate) did create words. The example I remember is "bad+dream" for nightmare.
they imitated some key words, but didn't originate their own
Humans have the "inventing words gene," while I believe other primates don't. But that isn't a bad thing (IMO), as it allows us to continue to understand them. If they did invent new words, they would have to teach us, and their ability to teach humans (they are, after all, not equal to our intelligence) could be limited.
Having said that this article [newscientist.com] says that it's quite possible bonobo's (a type of chimpanzee) do create verbal sounds for specific things, which I presume they've invented. I don't know if it is true that they are verbal "words," but it does bear more research.
However I don't see their inability to create words as them being unable to learn language. This page [tufts.edu] (it was only a quick search, info may be a bit suspect, but it seems fairly valid and jibes with what I've read in the past) has info on both success and failures. Why I like it is because it outlines those against the results proving language's opinions, as well as those opinions who are for it. One man called Herb Terrace doesn't believe the results so far are indicative of language aquisition, but merely "aping." Some of his complaints are:
* That the apes were were performing rote memorization tasks similar to pigeons who are taught to peck at colors in specific orders.
This I take issue with, because the page earlier shows an ape taking a word in one context "more" and using it in others. It isn't a simple case of "sign X always follows action Y" but instead, reasoning what sign X actually means, and applying it in other situations.
* Primates only signed in order to please their trainers, not for the personal gratification of using the signs.
I take issue with this, as many sources I've read say apes do spontaneously speak with each other. Having said that, it appears Terrace's complaints were actually made a few decades ago, and that research since then has proven him wrong. More info here [66.102.7.104]
* A primate might learn to connect a sign with food and reproduce the sign through simple conditioning, just as Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell.
To be honest, is it possible to prove that human children don't speak for the same reasons? I don't think so. Think about it, when a baby is learning to speak, we heap attention and treats on them. The Pavlovian method of teaching requires this to begin with, which is then removed and the taught actions continue regardless. A problem with detractors of ape speech is that they often ask questions we can't answer when it comes to humans.
but if anyone did do some proper communicating with chimps, i don't know about it.
Unfortunately I to, do not know if anyone has. The article I linked to before, does suggest that researchers are doing their best to communicate properly with apes, but it's a hot issue for those involved. I believe current research is very indicative, but it can't silence critics yet. But I do believe it's enough (or at least enough to warrant a much more structured research program with a definitive goal of giving apes more rights) to say "y'know. Maybe we should reconsider how we treat them. Perhaps there is a better place in our society for them."
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:4, Insightful)
To be honest, is it possible to prove that human children don't speak for the same reasons? I don't think so. Think about it, when a baby is learning to speak, we heap attention and treats on them.
Not really. Babies don't usually get any tangible reward simply for saying a word or two. They may get some attention, but they could get that far more effectively just by crying. Language is only really useful to a baby once it's developed to a significant extent. There are some cultures where babies are more or less ignored until they're able to keep up a decent conversation, but those babies still learn their native language just fine (despite not being rewarded for speaking to any significant extent).
Exactly what it is possible to teach bonobos is an open question -- just as it is an open question what it is possible to teach humans. The point is that human language isn't taught. You don't need to devise elaborate reward schemata to get a human baby to learn a natural language.
It seems that you don't hae kids. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of humans that aren't capable of learning grammar without instruction.
Erm, no. What we're talking about here is the notion of "grammar" in linguistics. This is the knowledge that people have which allows them to construct sentences, not the sort of prescriptive rules you're taught in school (don't split inifinitives, etc.) Only a small number of people with specific mental disabilities are unable to aquire the grammar of their native language.
For almost every question and "debunking"
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:4, Interesting)
That's because there's a bias among many humans, including a vast number of scientists, which is that humans and animals are somehow two different things. That we are somehow special, different, unique. We are just another animal. One of the smarter animals perhaps, but just another one of the many beasts on this world. We've got some neat, hyper-specialised abilities that evolution tossed our way in order to survive in this otherwise pathetic form....like not just tool-use or making (which many animals have), but tool-improving. We're also built for projectile weaponry, it's evolved into our eyesight, our reflexes, our strength level, and our complex brains which it takes to manage hunting via projectile weapon (be it spear, atlatl, bow, or firearm). And we're pack hunters....and complex hunting in a pack, using projectile weapons...you better damn sure know how to communicate with your packmates. It's nothing special about us, nothing secret....simple survival traits as applied to one animal.
The problem with the bias though, is that it causes people, including scientists, to make an assumption. That other animals cannot be almost as intelligent as we are, or think in ways that we do...or even think at all, or communicate on any meaningful level. They're just "apeing us" because they're "just dumb animals." Dolphins may be as intelligent or nearly so (or more so) as we are, but in an utterly alien way...yet you'll find few scientists with the guts to say so, even though there is a massive amount of evidence to back it up. Why? Because they are animals, of course!
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:3, Informative)
And yet there are scandalously immoral and unethical situations that have been studied (though perhaps not scientifically, since there's no control over variables, etc.) Of most recent note is the case of Genie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(fe [wikipedia.org]
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:3, Insightful)
Such scales are defined as "anything that animals don't do is human". Genie didn't develop language and never learned, even with instruction and therapy, grammar beyond what signing chimpanzees can demonstrate, not that her case is scientific in any way.
There is no standard for measuring intelligence. There isn't even a useful scientific definition of the *word*. There are lots of attempts at categorizing and approx
Re:chimps & sign language (Score:3, Informative)
Not a coincidence ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Language (Score:4, Funny)
Re:but children will become adults (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:but children will become adults (Score:4, Funny)
Re:but children will become adults (Score:5, Funny)
We do have precedent now.
Re:but children will become adults (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:but children will become adults (Score:5, Funny)
Then why post as an AC?
slashdot is proof (Score:5, Funny)
oh, and First Post(though i've probably failed it, i have Karma to burn so do whatever to me)
Experiment Proposal (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, the fact that humans are more likely to do unnecessary steps may indicate a greater willingness on the part of humans to experiment, which is why we have computers, and keep chimps in cages, and not the other way around.
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:2)
Uhhhh what?
How does imitating unnecessary steps translate to experimenting?
Experimenting would be trying it DIFFERENT ways, which is what the CHIMPS were doing, not just rote imitation of what they were shown, which the HUMANS were doing.
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:2)
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:3, Insightful)
But people pretty much grok that humans can be pretty violent.
The delusion that needs shattering is that chimpanzees are cuddly little furballs.
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:3, Insightful)
i never claimed that chimps are completely harmless, but how many human beings do u think have been killed by chimps in the history of man? now, how many human beings have been killed by the actions of another human being in, say, the last 6 months?
sure, chimps can kill a human being, so can a rotweiller. but more people each year probably die from eating cheese burgers than they do being attacked by these animals. even animals people percieve as being vicious and predatory like alligators or bears rarely
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:2)
"We'll pay your child $10 an hour to learn how to shuck corn from this chimpanzee."
That'd be one hell of a reality show.
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Experiment Proposal (Score:3, Insightful)
I did wonder how the chimps would behave if they were shown the steps by a *boss chimp* -- would they then be more likely to "do as they're told" rather than making things easier for them
A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that's just ordinary sociopathic behaviour. Politicians are aware of cause-and-effect, but don't have emotional reactions to the consequences.
You may be right in that being the difference between the children and the chimps though - the child's goal may have been to please the experimenter, while the chimp's goal was to get the prize
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:2)
I saw something recently about how chimps learn. The scientist made a point to note similari
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:2)
My experience thus far has been that some people *never* reach emotional maturity.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)
A simple example that anybody can relate to is sex. Try to explain sex to a 7 or 8 year old. They don't have the hormones yet, and they simply do not "get it".
Another simple example is that humans do not "learn to walk". It happens as soon as they are strong enough and have the coordination to walk. Just like other animals. Some of wh
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:5, Funny)
I agree, you should always train your wife from day one.
Re:A little bit biased, isn't it? (Score:5, Funny)
Did you....ahh..check under the hood before you married
This is nothing new... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ever work for the Military? As much as I respect those serving you have to wonder about some of the regs they have to live by. If you've worked as a contractor (or served) then you know what I mean
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:4, Insightful)
These were adult chimpanzees, yes? And comparing them to young humans?
I'm sure if you compared young chimpanzees with young humans the results might be different.
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:2)
These were adult chimpanzees, yes? And comparing them to young humans?
I'm sure if you compared young chimpanzees with young humans the results might be different.
The chimp in the pictures is obviously not an adult, so I would assume the comparison is fair.
So let me get this straight. (Score:2, Funny)
I'm shocked. Shocked!
Re:So let me get this straight. (Score:4, Funny)
Fool! The banana is with the BLUE button! Not the RED one!
Human survival trait (Score:5, Insightful)
When my windows box crashes, I reboot it, without knowing why. I could probably eliminate some steps between boot, crash, and reboot too...
Re:Human survival trait (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a discussion with a friend of mine about religion. She was raised religious, and while an athiest now, she was happy to have been raised religiously. I asked why; she responded that the religious foundation answered questions she would have had (albeit falsely) about God, death, universe, etc. and thus eased her mind about them until she was mature enough to decide that it was mythology to her. In other words, she did exactly as you suggested, emulated a successful culture dynamic too complex for her to understand fully.
We all do it as humans. It's what religion is. Do this because I(tm) said so.
Good point.
Re:Human survival trait (Score:3, Funny)
What? like running windows, if it is really working as intended, it should crash on boot, saveing all that valuable work time you could have spent so you can look at buying a new PC
Understandable (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Understandable (Score:2)
In fact, critical thinking would only becom useful when the child is presented with a range of knots and told to choose which one would be best.
I don't think this study shows just learning. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the real key here is communication and culture. The Chimps were 'shown' how to open the box to retrieve the food. The children were also 'shown', and told that they could do whatever they thought neccicary to retreive it.
I would think that upbringing and communication would have a big impact on what the kids will do. Lots of times, when an 'adult' shows a child how to do something, they will take that as the 'correc
Previous Experience (Score:4, Insightful)
I have two children (Score:5, Funny)
This is just stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it teaches us that there are some real morons at the university level wasting money that could be going to a WORTHY project.
This reminds me of the study a few years back when the attempted to discover why hot pizza burns the roof of your mouth.
Re:This is just stupid (Score:3, Informative)
The specific heat of water is much higher than that of oil, which means the oil heats up quicker, but also loses its heat quicker. Top this with the insulating effect the cheese gives the sauce, and the sauce can end up staying overly hot for quite some time.
Anyhoo, im not sure quite why a study of that would be needed, but I for one find looking at it from the angle of specific hea
Re:This is just stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is just stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you hate science? (Score:4, Insightful)
And what's your point? This study highlighted some profound (and somewhat surprising) differences between humans and one of our closest relatives. Such differences may have some bearing on how humans evolved the ability to develop a complex, linguistic culture based on rigorous imitation. You wouldn't be against learning about evolution, would you?
I know, I know; when you say WORTHY project, you probably mean something dire like cancer or AIDS research. And I wholeheartedly agree that those are worthy projects needing generous funding. But science is science. This study adds to what we know about stuff. That's justification in and of itself. And who's to say this research won't tell us something new about mirror neurons [slashdot.org] (probably necessary for imitation) and, by extension, autism, hm?
Re:This is just stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Well? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't leave us hangin, man; did they learn why?
Re:Well? (Score:5, Informative)
+1 Funny: Because it's hot. Hot <anything> burns. It doesn't have to be pizza.
Or the:
+1 Informative/Boring: The roof of your mouth is particularly sensitive; it's part of the body's temperature monitors. It's this sensor that triggers brain freeze when you eat something cold. The sensor thinks you're far too cold, and your brain tells blood to rush to your head. The amount of blood is higher than the veins and capillaries can take, and bottlenecks. And it hurts.
Tough call...
Not sure if this is true or myth (Score:2)
That the saying a trained chimp could do this job as reffering to a boring assembly line job is in fact not true. While a monkey/ape could be trained to do simple assembly work it could not do it for the 8 hour shifts that humans can without going insane.
Sure it is nice if you can see the redundancy in your actions but it doesn't seem to allow chimps to keep growing. Childeren may be more limited then chimps but something must work better since adults are clearly su
Re:Not sure if this is true or myth (Score:2, Funny)
Thats because the human already is insane. All humans are insane, but since we control the dictionary, we get to call ourselves sane.
Interesting, but accurate? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've seen fairly irrelevant procedures in many tasks that exist for safety reasons. Weapons handling in the military is certainly an
It's also proof... (Score:2)
Re:It's also proof... (Score:2)
Your point is well taken... but chimps aren't monkeys. They're apes.
psychology not learning (Score:4, Insightful)
Children are told to do things all the time- they are punished if they don't do them exactly as asked. Kids are encouraged to conform and do what they are asked.
It has very little to do with learning or the ability to think abstractly and more with whether we are discouraged from thinking abstractly by our society. If we all thought for ourselves in the US we would be in much better shape. However a good portion of people let the church do their thinking.
Socialization (Score:2)
LetterRip
Further proof (Score:2)
Re:Further proof (Score:2, Informative)
However, if you were to use devolve as to say: "The
Authority (Score:2, Interesting)
This view of authority is, however, a double-edged sword and could be dangerous.
Imitation is flattery.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I was more excited about this when... (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know what sort of a reasoning test involved children and simians to engage in fisticuffs, but I was all for it.
conformity? (Score:2)
Maybe children do this because they have been trained to be able to conform. Or perhaps humans are even biologically better at conforming to social standards. Could be because of better impulse control or something.
As much as I, an individualist, hate to admit it, sometimes conformity can make a group function more efficiently and can be useful trait.
So perhaps this behavior shows that humans are not dumber than but instead are more socially capable than chimps.
Actually... (Score:2)
Children get REWARDED for imitation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Practically from birth, humans are conditioned to imitate each other, so perhaps it's no surprise that the children absorbed and retained the "ritual" portions of the tasks. Psychologists call it operant conditioning: when you reward a certain kind of behaviour, it tends to occur more often; if you don't, then it tends to extinguish. I wonder if chimps are more goal-oriented because their sense of reward is more focused on the final result rather than following a number of ritualized steps, at least initially. In short, perhaps young children are more conditioned to imitate, as well as being more capable of doing so.
co-wokers (Score:2)
Follow authority (Score:2)
The thing is, if the process was set up by an expert, the non-obvious steps often do have importance. The guy on the assembly line drills a hole where he's told because that's what he was told to do. The fact that the hole is later an anchoring point for a strut is Somebody Else's Problem.
You might say the repetition of the steps designated by Authority is th
Maria Montessori documented this 100 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
Now ask a chimp to have a vocabulary of 10,000 words.
Maria Montessori's major insight was that there are "sensitive periods" for various developments -- an age to walk, an age for toilet independence, an age to talk, an age to learn practical life skills, an age to acquire knowledge, an age to self-consciously play a role in human society, and an age to develop a profession. If a person does not learn and develop a skill during the sensitive period, that person will struggle with that skill until death.
Three and four year olds aren't ready to reason. Teach them to read, to sew, and to cook instead.
Effect may not immediately follow cause (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it - usually, when an ape wants to obtain food, it only needs to complete a couple of steps to achieve that goal, and the reward is immediate. But with tool-using humans, it may involve sharpening a rock, cutting a big stick, jamming the rock in the end of the stick, and then hunting for food and killing it with the tool. Even if the manufacture of the spear immediately precedes hunting for the animal, the reward is still not instant, and it may even be beneficial to manufacture several spears the day before.
Children see the manufacture of these tools, and the manufacture of the spear becomes the apparent goal, not the killing of the animal. Since the benefit of each step in terms of its effect on the fitness of the tool isn't immediately apparent, it's more advantageous to imitate all of the steps until one gains the higher insight needed to modify the tool's design. There may thus have been a pressure to select for children who were good at imitation when the immediate reward was simply the completion of the task and not the reward that comes from later using the tool.
And when you think about it, nearly everything we do today (aside from fairly passive activities like watching TV, sleeping, taking a dump) doesn't have an immediate reward, yet we usually feel good about completing a task whose actual benefit isn't immediate.
A child eh? How Old? (Score:3, Funny)
And the point of the headline?
Re:makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What kind of kids? (Score:2, Insightful)
I actually -live- in a fairly isolated part of the South, and dear -god-, that is the stuff of annoying television shows. (Oh, and Alabama, but they don't count). That sort of annoyance only resides in places like Opp, Paxton, Ensley, Florala, Red Level, and Florabama.
Ever heard of 'em? Nope. It's because they still don't have cell phone service. And don't have malls.
-grumbles about people making Southerners out to be 100% backwards, useless, stupid, annoy
Re:Clarification (Score:2)
Re:This required a study? (Score:2)
So we're winning.
Humans: 1
Mother Nature: 0
Re:Chimps writing PHP code. (Score:2)
Re:Chimps writing PHP code. (Score:5, Funny)
$ook = new Banana.GiveMeBanana();
my $stomach = _FULL_;
my $sound = loudContentedScreech();
throwFeces();
?>
Re:Chimps writing PHP code. (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously man, did Rasmus Lerdorf systematically kill off every one of your remaining family members, or something?
Seriously man. These are all CyricZ PHP trolls from THIS MONTH. I skipped a good 10 that were all on the "PHP5 Recipes" thread, for sanity's sake.
Re:Chimps writing PHP code. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Chimps writing PHP code. (Score:2)
Re:Frankly, I'm not terribly surprised... (Score:2)
Re:Wal*Mart Kids (Score:5, Insightful)
You guys that are saying that, you don't have the side of research on you. It may be one thing to say, "I'd beat my kid until they'd learn to be quiet," but that practice just DOESNT work. It causes a whole host of problems within the child including insecure attachment, mental scarring, and the justification of the use of aggression to solve problems. Here's a little riddle for you: Two kids are on the playground, and one of them is running around, pushing people over, hitting, kicking, etc. The other is playing in the sand with a smaller group of kids, interacting, using social skills such as sharing. Which one of these kids is the one which gets hit with a belt whenever he misbehaves? From that angle it is completely different, right?
Not to say that the mother was acting appropriately. Parenting lesson #1, use the minimal level of force needed to immediately stop misbehavior, whether this threatening time out or physically restraining the child. That does not include physical abuse. The reason this works is because of a wonderful little thing called cognitive dissonance. When you stop behavior, the child then has time to analyze what he has done and will come to the point where his opinion of himself as good contrasts with his bad actions, causing discomfort. He therefor has to relieve this. If you use violence on the child, he relieves this by a process called overjustification, and ends up devaluing the consequences of his behavior, and will continue doing it once you walk away. If you stop the behavior mildly, then the child will be forced to reevaluate his own internal mindset, and behaviorally change will result. Some of you are already saying "That will not work on a 5 year old," but it does. Children learn these things incredibly early on.
Anyway, guys, please stop this whole beating the child thing. It's not cute, it's not macho, and it's not good parental advice. There are so many ills within our society already that we don't need people going around and blatently advocating the advancement of another one.
Re:Wal*Mart Kids (Score:3, Insightful)
From your limited "riddle", we can't know. What we do know is that the schoolyard bully is not being disciplined effectively. Often, children don't respond the same w