Ape and Human Cognition: What's the Difference?

Author(s): Michael Tomasello and Esther Herrmann

Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 19, No. 1 (FEBRUARY 2010), pp. 3-
8
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 aps
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Current Directions in Psychological

Science

Ape and Human Cognition: What's the 19(1) 3-8

The Author(s) 2010
Difference? Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0963721409359300
http://cdps.sagepub.com

(DSAGE
Michael Tomasello and Esther Herrmann
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

Abstract

Humans share the vast majority of their cognitive skills with other great apes. In addition, however, humans have also
unique suite of cognitive skills and motivations - collectively referred to as shared ntentionality - for living collabo
learning socially, and exchanging information in cultural groups.

Keywords
apes, culture, cognition, evolution, cooperation

Surely one of the deepest and most important questionsprimates'

in all of cognitive skills for dealing with the physical world
the psychological sciences is how human cognition is similar
almosttocertainly evolved in the context of foraging for food.
and different from that of other primates. The main datumAs
is compared
this: with other mammals, primates may face special
Humans seemingly engage in all kinds of cognitive activities that
challenges in locating their daily fare, since ripe fruits are pat-
their nearest primate relatives do not, but at the same timechy resources
there is that are irregularly distributed in space and time.
Other
great variability among different cultural groups. All groups have studies suggest that great apes understand their social
worlds
complex technologies but of very different types; all groups usein basically the same way as humans as well. Like
linguistic and other symbols but in quite different ways; all apes live in a world of identifiable individuals with
humans,
groups have complex social institutions but very different
whomones.
they form various kinds of social relationships - for
What this suggests is that human cognition is in some way bound in terms of dominance and "friendship" - and they
example,
up with human culture. Here we argue that this is indeed recognize
the case, the third-party social relationships that other individ-
and we then try to explain this fact evolutionarily. uals have with one another. Moreover, they go beneath this
understanding of social behavior and relationships to understand
the goals and perceptions of social partners acting as intentional
Similarities in Ape and Human Cognition
agents (see Call & Tomasello, 2008, for a review). Apes' and
The five great ape species (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees,
other primates' cognitive skills for dealing with the social world
bonobos, humans) share a common ancestor from about 1 5 mil-
evolved mainly in the context of competition with groupmates
lion years ago, with the last three sharing a common ancestor
for valued resources, and primates, as compared with other
from about 6 million years ago (see Fig. 1 for a picture of chim-
mammals, live in especially complex social groups (leading to
panzees). Since great apes are so closely related to oneso-called
another Machiavellian intelligence; Byrne & Whiten, 1988).
evolutionarily, it is natural that they share many perceptual,
behavioral, and cognitive skills.

Great ape cognitive operations

Great ape cognitive worlds Great apes also operate on their cognitive worlds in ways very
similar
Many different studies suggest that nonhuman great apes (here- to humans. Thus, apes not only perceive and understand
after great apes) understand the physical world in basically
thingsthe
in the immediate here and now but they also recall things
same way as humans. Like humans, apes live most basically in
a world of permanent objects (and categories and quantities of
Corresponding Author:
objects) existing in a mentally represented space. Moreover,
Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,
they understand much about various kinds of events in the
Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Deutscher
world and how these events relate to one another causally (see
Platz 6, D-04 1 03 Leipzig, Germany
Tomasello & Call, 1997, for a review). Apes' and other
E-mail: tomas@eva.mpg.de

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 4

Fig. I . Chimpanzees i

they and reasoning

have to imagine the food in the correct cup (Call,
perceived
that 2004).
might happen in
some Apes also can reason
great apesabout the decision making of other
used
was gone they
individuals. drop
For instance, in a recent study, human-raised chim-
panzees observed
returned, more a human successfully solving a problem food
in a
After particular way. The chimpanzees
only a then
feweither followed that way rep
to take or not depending on whether
the tool their particular circumstances
with -
next trial
that is, the obstacleswhen
to solving the problem - were the same th
2006). or different as those that had faced the human demonstrator.
Great apes also can make inferences about what one per- They seemingly reasoned about why the human had chosen the
ceived state or event implies about another. For example, in behavioral means she had (Buttelmann, Carpenter, Call, &
another experiment, great apes were faced with two cups, and Tomasello, 2007).
they knew that only one of them contained food. They then
watched as a human shook one. Not only were they able to infer
which one had food when they heard it in there, they were also
able to infer which one had food (i.e., the other one) when the
Differences in Ape and Human Cognition
shaken cup made no sound. This is a kind of reasoning by Since humans have brains three times larger than other great
exclusion (analogous to disjunctive syllogism in formal logic): apes - and share so many basic cognitive skills with them - it
(a) the food is in one of the cups; (b) it is not in this one would be natural to assume that humans are just more cogni-
(inferred from lack of sound - causal reasoning); (c) so then tively sophisticated than apes in a general way. But this is not
it must be in the other one. The apes thus used their knowledge the case; the situation is much more interesting than that.

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 Ape and Human Cognition 5

An overall comparison
The ability to collaborate and communicate with others in
sophisticated, species-unique ways is apparent even in prelin-
In a recent study, Herrmann, Call, Her
guistic human infants (see Fig. 2). In a recent comparative
Tomasello (2007) gave an extensive batt
study, human 1 -year-olds and juvenile chimpanzees each
large numbers of chimpanzees, ora
engaged in a collaborative task with a human adult. When the
human children.
The tasks assessed all
adult stopped participating, the chimpanzees simply tried to
for dealing with both the physical and
solve the task alone. The human children, in contrast, employed
differentiates humans from their nea
various forms of communication to try to reengage the adult
simply a greaterintodegree of general
the task. The children seemed to understand that the two
in
of perceptual discrimination, larger w
of them had committed themselves to doing this together and
inferencing skills, and so forth - then
it simply would not do if the adult was shirking her duty. The
differed from the apes uniformly acr
collaboration was structured by joint goals and joint commit-
of tasks. But that was not the case. The
ments to one another (Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello, 2006).
dren were very similar to the apes in
It is not difficult to see in these simple activities the roots of the
dealing with space, quantities, and ca
kind of collaborative commitments and activities that structure
have their same basic great-ape skills f
human social institutions, from governments to religions.
ical world. But these same 2-year-old c
And the way humans communicate is fundamentally coop-
prenumerical, and preschool - showed
erative as well. Humans do not just try to get others to do what
cognitive skills for dealing with the
they want them tc vhich is what most animal communication
intention-reading, social learning, and
(and much human communication) is about - but they also
So early in ontogeny human infants
communicate simply to inform others of things helpfully and
advantages over apes in social-cognitiv
to share emotions and attitudes with them freely. Human
show in other cognitive domains. The
infants communicate in this cooperative way even before they
dren's special social-cognitive skills re
acquire language, especially with the pointing gesture
special kind of cultural intelligence ev
(Tomasello, Carpenter, & Lizskowski, 2007). Human lan-
a cultural group. Participating in a cu
guages, as the pinnacles of human communication, rely on
enhance all of children's cognitive
these cooperative motives as well, but they are also constituted
including those for dealing with the
by fundamentally cooperative communicative devices -
dren, for example, imitate others' too
known as linguistic conventions (or symbols) - whose mean-
and all its conceptual categories, lear
ings derive from a kind of cooperative agreement that we will
and operations via instruction, and so
all use them in the same way (Tomasello, 2008).
skills of social cognition thus bootstra
Both collaborative activities with shared goals and coopera-
cognition by enabling them to collab
tive communication using shared symbols are structured by
with, and learn from others in the cu
joint attention. This means that as children work together with
Evolutionarily, the key difference
others or communicate with them, they have a mutual aware-
evolved not only social-cognitive skill
ness that this is what they are doing: We are both committed
tion, but also social-cognitive skills
to this joint goal; or, we are both focused on this same object
toward complex forms of cooperation
together. This creates the possibility of culturally constituted
motivations for shared intentionality
entities that exist because, and only because, everyone in the
Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005). Most impor
group believes and acts as //they do - for example, such things
vations shared for intentionality in c
as marriage and money and presidents (Searle, 1995).
and communication and (b) cultural le

Cultural learning and transmission

Collaboration and communication
All great apes, especially chimpanzees and orangutans, trans-
Virtually all of humans' highest cognitive achievements mit
are not
some behaviors and information across generations cultu-
the work of individuals acting alone but rather of individuals
rally (Whiten & van Schaik, 2007). But the human way of
collaborating in groups. Other great apes, especially chimpan-
living depends fundamentally and totally on cultural learning
zees, coordinate their actions with others in a number of
andcom-
transmission. In particular, the human way of living
plex ways - for example, in capturing small animalsdepends
and in on processes of cultural evolution in which material
coalitions and alliances in intragroup conflicts (Mller &
and symbolic artifacts and social practices accumulate modifi-
Mitani, 2005). But humans collaborate and communicate with over time (ratchet up in complexity), such that they
cations
one another in especially complex ways that go beyond have a "history" within the group upon which others can
simple
coordination, ending up with such things as complex socialbuild (Tomasello, 1999).
always
institutions structured by joint goals, division of labor, and
Much empirical research on social learning and imitation
communicative symbols. has shown that young children understand and reproduce, to

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6

Fig. 2. Collaboration in

a greater doing
extent it "r
tha
result of Such
others' act
norma
processes tifying
used to wit
pr
tion, And
other so to
importa
derive with
from other
their s
and these add
world to the
ready
well. culture,
Specifically, by
ad
whereas tices
teachingvia im
is
of other identificati
great apes,
of this
altruistic is a
cooperatus
children it
areis the
especial"r
(Gergely group.
& Thi
Csibra,
implicitly based
learning on
es
adults teach
sestthem th
primat
often jump to norma
that this is how the a
The Coevolution of Human Culture and
this is how we in thi
example, a recent
Cognition
in
puppet playing a
As compared with their nearest great-ape relatives, humans gam
they hadoccupy an incredibly wide range of environmental
been taugh niches

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 Ape and Human Cognition 7

covering almost skills

the entire
and motivations planet.
of shared intentionality manifest themselves T
from the Arctic to
during the tropics, hu
human ontogeny.
evolved a highly Tomasello,
flexible M. (2008). (See References).
suite A theoreticalof
account ofcog
how
are not individual cooperative
cognitivecommunication, includingskills
conventional languages,
tha
survive alone in theemerged in human evolution.
tundra or rain fo
social-cognitive skills that enable the
with others in their cultural groups,
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
with whatever challenges may arise.
The authorsintentional
skills of individual declared no potential conflicts of interestaction
with respect to
the authorship and/or publication of this article.
skills and motivations for sharing in
with others.
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