First False -Belief Test Passed by Ape (Kanzi’s sister, bonobo Panbanisha) TheoryofMindPB

A very interesting thing about language is an assumption hidden in its very use. That hidden assumption is that when talk to someone we do so to tell them something they don't already know. And when they talk back to us they do the same. This is called "Theory of Mind" - which means that we believe the person we are talking to has a mind similar to ours where experiences and feelings are stored. We talk to them to tell them about what is in or "on" our mind and they do the same in response. It has long been assumed that only "humans" understood that others had minds - nonhuman animals have been thought to react to their world "automatically." For example a dog sees a stranger and begins barking. Is the dog barking because a stranger is approaching or to tell you that a stranger is approaching because he believes that you have not noticed the stranger. It's not an easy question to answer because dogs seem to look back at their owners as they bark but they also bark when their owners are not there. Human only talk when others are there (except for people who talk to themselves). Humans - even if we were dogs would not "bark" when no one was there to speak to. We also pay very close attention to what others see and know and do not generally tell them things that the already see and know. Indeed, other humans can feel greatly insulted if we do this, so we are very careful. It turns out that the bonobos are equally careful. They are very attuned to what other bonobos and humans see and now and they do not repeat it or point it out. Psychologists have a specific test for this Theory of Mind ability. It is called the "smartie's " test because it is named after a candy that is used in the test. In this video we perform a version of this test with Panbanisha - using M&M's. In this test person A (the experimenter) causes person B (the co-operator) to think that the candy is in one location as a child watches. While person B is then out of the room, person A replaces the candy with something else, WHILE THE CHILD WATCHES. When person B returns, the child is asked about the state of mind of person B. That is - does person B think that the candy is still in the box where it was last seen? If the child believes the person has mind and is attending to what the person has seen, the child will say that Person B believes candy to be location. But if the child is too young to have formed this theory, then the child will say that they person is thinking of the object is now where the candy was, not realizing that the person who was out of the room at the time of the shift, did not see it. Like many children, Panbanisha thought that something was "odd" about what was taking place and shows this in her behavior in many ways, but she clearly passes the test. Many children with autism fail this test. Normal children pass such test sometime between 5 and 12 years of age. According to Mike Tomasello, who has focused on laboratory reared apes who have been no opportunity to acquire language, apes are incapable of passing a false beliefs test such as this one. An ape with language is constantly interpreting everything that is taking place in its world in terms of language. Panbanisha's younger sister, Tamuli failed the test - because she could not understand language. She may well have realized that person B had a mind and even that Person B thought that the M&M's were still in the box, but without understanding the question there was no way to pass the test. The same is true of the chimpanzees reference by Tomasello. This emphasizes why it is important to allow apes to acquire and utilize language. To date they are the only nonhuman species that we know CAN acquire a human language through the natural process of communication.