
Great apes appear to have “theory of mind” - mr_tyzic
https://www.inverse.com/article/59699-orangutans-bonobos-chimps-theory-of-mind
======
xvector
Multiple hominid species on Earth have had a technology gap on an unfathomable
timescale. Indeed, the Denisovans developed stone tools tens of thousands of
years before our own species.

We often look to the stars and wonder what other intelligent life is out
there. I'm sure it's captured every one of our minds at some point. Dark
Forest theory of the Fermi Paradox be damned, we want to share in the comfort
of knowing that intelligent life exists. That we are not all alone.

But I wonder - had things been not much different, might we be cohabiting with
an intelligent species, one perhaps tens of thousands of years ahead of us?
Aliens on our own planet?

Would we even realize their sentience - would our minds even be comparable?
Would their civilization fade to ruins before we came to sentience, and would
we discover remnants of a long-lost civilization? Would they raze the planet
to the ground and never provide us the opportunity to develop sentience?

So many questions. Are we in a similar situation right now with other
hominids, who we've found to have a "theory of mind"? Are we morally obligated
to not cut the nip of societal development in the bud for these species? And
if this species suffers in developing and advancing, are we obligated to ease
and accelerate their development?

For example, if a far advanced civilization was out there, merely observing us
while they knew they had the cure to our dying loved ones and general
suffering on this planet, would we not find the only ethical solution to
provide said cure? As such, are we in a similar situation with other
developing hominids?

When you think about it, it is possible that intelligent life developing on
other planets is not a singular species but multiple species. And that's
fascinating. I wonder what it must be like, to cohabit with a different
species that is effectively your equal with respect to self-
awareness/sentience, even if they are not your equal with respect to
technology.

~~~
gambiting
>For example, if a far advanced civilization was out there, merely observing
us while they knew they had the cure to our dying loved ones and general
suffering on this planet, would we not find the only ethical solution to
provide said cure?

I mean, we already do that to an extent. There are "wild" tribes living in
remote areas of the planet and surely they must suffer from illnesses which we
have cures for, but in the name of leaving them alone we don't provide them
with anything.

~~~
fao_
Uh, no. In the name of leaving them alone we don't bring disease and
destruction to their culture and community.

~~~
joenot443
Do you think we could interact with them in a beneficial way without bringing
disease or drastically changing their way of life?

~~~
drdeadringer
Ethics and moralities of actually doing so aside for two moments...

1) I'm trying to imagine a sterilized delivery system of treatments that such
tribes would be able to understand enough to use.

2) Similar to "how do we communicate to the deep future not to enter nuclear
waste storage facilities", how do we communicate to such people when not only
is there a language barrier but also a gap of hundreds [thousands?] of
technological &c progress as well.

------
shakna
> After decades of research, it remains controversial whether any nonhuman
> species possess a theory of mind.

It should be important to note that whilst this result isn't particularly
surprising, there is one giant glaring issue that can undercut this paper.

They define theory of mind based on past definitions and research, and base
their methodology on methods that have arisen that seem to fit-for-purpose to
those definitions.

Which would usually be fine.

However, during the Replication Crisis, basically everything to do with theory
of mind was dashed to pieces. (Worth pointing out that more than 1/3 of
psychological research was found to be un-replicatable.)

One of the main components of "theory of mind", "embodied cognition" was
particularly badly hit by the crisis.

So whilst this paper may be unsurprising, it rests on the laurels of stuff
that has turned out to be nothing more than a polished turd, making the result
questionable until such time as psychology has managed to recover the massive
amount of ground lost.

~~~
nbeleski
Would you kindly expand on the issues with ToM and embodied cognition that
were affected by the Replication Crisis?

You mention a main component that was badly hit, what would that be?

Thanks in advance!

~~~
shakna
All of psychology was hit by the Replication Crisis. 1 in 3 papers have
results that are unable to be replicated. In any field that'd have seriously
wide-reaching implications, but in psychology where so much relies on
foundational theories like ToM it is extremely significant. This impact was
worsened by the fact that so few psychological researchers choose to attempt
to replicate results, due in part by the fact that doing so isn't incentivized
by the industry.

Embodied cognition basically has not a single paper able to be replicated [0],
so it's out the window.

This isn't to say that ToM is a flawed theory - in general, it's conclusion is
probably true. Rather, psychology has some terrible, terrible, mainstream
practices - things like outlier elimination and p-value rounding basically
make it impossible to replicate a study unless the original author is
involved.

But _assuming_, without evidence to the contrary, that the theory is still
sound is denying the problem exists. Thankfully there is some research [6]
attempting to show where the world is at with regards to this particular
theory.

The study the article is about uses the fairly typical false-belief task.
We've been using versions of it since '83, so it should be solid. Except it
might not work at all when a person has autism [1], and as autistic people
generally are aware of others and that others can differ in thought, the task
may be flawed or our understanding flawed. Or maybe autism really does mean
you lack something that fundamental [+]. There are other inconsistencies with
it. [7]

The false-photograph task was developed in part because of the apparent
limitations of the false-belief task. Unfortunately, Woodward's results
haven't yet been replicated, just relied upon.

Before the crisis hit home, the research was leaning towards people with
autism being ToM deficient, but replications don't show statically sound
results that say it conclusively or not, thanks to p-value rounding, whilst
some more recent research suggests we simply aren't measuring it correctly,
and those results may be caused by the coping mechanisms employed. [2][5]
Which, if true, suggests that the false-belief task may not actually be
stimulating the right parts of any individual's mind, but rather just engaging
them in something visually intensive.

A lot of our measurements of ToM, such as when using fMRIs, have been called
into question, as they might just be falsely noticing the spatial orientation
that happens during visual stimulus. [3] But again, there isn't enough
replication to say definitively one way or t'other.

There's also some lesser issues. Some of the strongest ToM research suggests
that the origin lies in mirror neurons [4], but the animals studied in the
article of this thread don't have them, and animals possibly having ToM is
extremely inflammatory within the broader psychological community. If you want
someone to try and replicate your study, suggest that a particular animal has
ToM. There's about a 50/50 success rate, which is not really encouraging.

Hopefully that's a little bit to chew on. As I've said, ToM probably does
work. But we don't currently have the statistics to say it does.

[0] [https://qz.com/1525854/psychologys-replication-crisis-is-
deb...](https://qz.com/1525854/psychologys-replication-crisis-is-debunking-
embodied-cognition-theory/)

[1]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027785...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027785900228?via%3Dihub)

[2]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1611](https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1611)

[3]
[https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1073858407304654](https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1073858407304654)

[4]
[https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS1364-6613%2898%2901262-5](https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS1364-6613%2898%2901262-5)

[5]
[https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.neuroimage.2011.02.067](https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.neuroimage.2011.02.067)

[6]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235234091...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352340917306121)

[7]
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976124478...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797612447819)

[+] I'm not the right person to judge this. I have autism. Which, if the ToM
theories are correct, means I lack the perspective to tell whether or not I
have a ToM deficit.

~~~
jcranberry
I'm not defending psychology. But you've inserted your own narrative and
interpretation into this group of studies which do not necessarily follow. In
addition, although they are still important in a lot of ways this is a fast
developing field and some of these studies are fairly old.

Your assertion that [2] and [5] are evidence of problems with the conclusion
of [1] does not follow. [2] and [5] are findings of atypical neural activity
in specific systems/areas of the brain in response to imitating and
experiencing emotional stimuli. [1] is a finding that people with ASD score
poorly on a test of theory of mind. It does not at all follow that they are
evidence that the result of [1] is incorrect. They could just as easily by a
reason why people with ASD are lacking in theory of mind rather than be
evidence that the result is incorrect.

It's the same thing with [4]. I also don't see evidence to your claim that
great apes do not have them. I only see a lack of any kind of studies on MNS
in almost all animals. This is the only excerpt I found on them is in [9], and
it says nothing of the sort, and it implies that there haven't been any
attempts at observation of MNS in other animals including hominids/apes.

There is nothing on whether or not hominids do not have MNS, and on dolphins
there is only (at this time) conjecture. On the other hand animals having
mirror neurons but not having theory of mind does not mean that mirror neurons
are not necessary for forming theory of mind. It just means that it's more
complicated than that. [8] asserts that it is a part of it. In fact MNS is now
believed to be a separate system from the ToM system (even if they are related
and interact) [10].

Although [3] cast some doubt, it is by no means a conclusive dismissal. It
essentially says one area of the brain previously studied probably has several
different functions instead of just a social-cognitive one. It shows only that
the specifically relevant previous work is less conclusive. It is also from
2007, and has nearly 1000 citing papers. One such paper that is fairly highly
cited is [10], which compensates for issues presented by [3] by looking at a
different area of the brain. Here is another study which examines a different
aspect of the brain [12]. It also cites a few studies which it cites as
specifically showing reduced activity in regions in the brain which are part
of the ToM/mentalizing system.

It is not obvious to me from the evidence you've provided what the problems
with ToM are, especially with regards to people with ASD.

[8]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976340...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763401000148)

[9]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5810456/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5810456/)

[10]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524046](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524046)

[11]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811911002230)

[12] [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-
abst...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-
abstract/1860852)

~~~
shakna
> Our central question, however, was whether there is any evidence for a
> direct supporting role of the mirror system during mentalizing tasks.
> Apparently not.

and

> This conclusion is contrary to suggestions that the mirror system might aid
> the mentalizing system to inferring intentions of others.

[10] Doesn't seem to support the idea that the mirror system is at all
involved in ToM. It may cite other papers, but the conclusions are not in
support of that concept.

\---

> They could just as easily by a reason why people with ASD are lacking in
> theory of mind rather than be evidence that the result is incorrect.

I didn't rule this out. However, from the evidence we have, there isn't enough
to rule it in, either. The neurological patterns being seen could simply be
the mirror system, which doesn't seem to have to be involved with ToM being
active. We don't understand enough.

If the test is incorrect, then there isn't a reason to believe people with ASD
are ToM deficit.

Further, the result that people with ASD have a mirror system deficit hasn't
always been reproduced. [0]

[0]
[http://www.antoniahamilton.com/HamiltonMarsh_UoM_preprint.pd...](http://www.antoniahamilton.com/HamiltonMarsh_UoM_preprint.pdf)

\---

[12] Brings out the statistician in me a bit. They use Bonferroni correction,
which while it works, it isn't the most suitable way of dealing with the
problem on hand. If instead they'd used Sidak correction, the resulting
confidence may have been different. They would have ended up close to the same
result, but if they've made this very simple mistake, (choosing a correction
method that has known applicable flaws, in fact probably the weakest
familywise method), what else have they done?

> the mean z score for ToM overconnected clusters was correlated with ADI-R
> Social and ADI-R Communication scores (r = 0.45, P < .05 and r = 0.51, P <
> .01, respectively), although neither survived Bonferroni correction for
> multiple comparisons.

If it didn't survive simple correction over multiple comparisons, then it
probably isn't significant. However, rather than looking at that, this value
that can't survive correction lead to their conclusion that their first
hypothesis and second hypothesis were correct.

I don't have the time or energy required to use the supplied data to re-
evaluate the given data, but currently there does appear to be the suggestion
that this paper is a victim of P-value hunting.

Which is kind of the point. These practices are incredibly wide-spread, and
incredibly harmful to the whole field.

~~~
jcranberry
> [10] Doesn't seem to support the idea that the mirror system is at all
> involved in ToM. It may cite other papers, but the conclusions are not in
> support of that concept.

Well, like I said it's a quickly growing field...[8] is a review from 2001
early on in the discovery of mirror neurons (although I know at some point or
another their existence was disputed...not sure if that's still happening) and
contains a lot of conjecture, [10] is a meta-analysis from 2009. I would say
[10] is correct, so MNS may even be a red herring in the conversation on ToM.

However, if you're responding to confusion over this statement:

> _One such paper that is fairly highly cited is_ __[10] __ _, which
> compensates for issues presented by [3] by looking at a different area of
> the brain._

I believe the paper I attempted to cite here was in fact [11], which is also
one of your citations, [5]. In it's discussion it asserts that the area of the
brain relevant to the paper is "functionally and spatially dissociable from
nearby dorsal clusters which respond to attentional reorienting", citing [3].

>I didn't rule this out. However, from the evidence we have, there isn't
enough to rule it in, either.

I absolutely agree...but you asserted [2] and [5] 'suggested we simply aren't
measuring it correctly', which they don't. I just wanted to clarify this
wasn't the case. [7] suggests that, but absolutely not [2] or [5].

>Further, the result that people with ASD have a mirror system deficit hasn't
always been reproduced. [0]

What you're saying is true, but this review doesn't support the assertion that
people with ASD do not have a ToM deficit. It brings up two theoretical
explanations for why people with ASD 'have difficulty understanding goals and
intentions of others', and shows that evidence towards one of the theories,
the 'broken mirror theory' is shaky at best and evidence is leaning against
the broken mirror theory at worst.

There are three questions here which are being muddied together:

1\. Does the MNS have a role in development of ToM?

2\. Do people with ASD have a deficient MSN?

3\. Do people with autism have a ToM deficit?

The answer to 1 appears to be, we do not know, however as the mentalizing/ToM
system can act independently to the MNS, this may not be material to question
3.

The answer to 2 appears to be, it's as of yet inconclusive, and the review you
posted seems to assert evidence is mounting to the contrary.

As for question 3...all current measures seems to point towards 'yes' [13],
however, all current measures are also disputed as to whether or not they are
accurately measuring ToM [14]. The method discussed in [7], is actually not
the only method used to study ToM in people with ASD. It is an explicit
(verbal) method (such as those referenced in [0] of the parent comment), and
'implicit' (visual) methods followed which used eye tracking (it is not yet
clear whether these tests measure different things or the verbal tests are
simply ineffective). These methods found impaired mentalizing in people with
ASD [15]. More recently, more methods have arisen [14]. Here is one of the
linked studies with an interesting discussion [16].

So, frankly it wouldn't be correct in my eyes to say it's certain in any way
that people with ASD have a ToM deficit...but at the very least progress and
improvements in methodology don't seem to have yet cast significant doubt on
conclusions reached by previous research in this topic.

Unfortunately I'm unable to give input on your comments on p-value hacking for
[12] since I don't have expertise. But at least the papers subject is on the
mechanism rather than the degree to which people with ASD have a ToM deficit,
so it doesn't affect the overall discussion too much.

[13]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23686020?dopt=Abstract](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23686020?dopt=Abstract)

[14]
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-018-3823-3](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-018-3823-3)

[15]
[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.0169...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01696/full#B38)

[16]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487761/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487761/)

~~~
shakna
> As for question 3...all current measures seems to point towards 'yes' [13],
> however, all current measures are also disputed as to whether or not they
> are accurately measuring ToM [14].

I think this where we're getting stuck.

For me, if a methodology is in doubt, then so are any conclusions that rely
upon it. If the methodologies are in doubt, then the conclusions shouldn't be
used as a foundation for anything.

Whereas for you, it seems that you'll continue along with the previous belief
until such time as new methodologies quantitatively say one way or the other.

~~~
jcranberry
I wouldn't say I hold such a strong position. I tried to make my conclusion
fairly noncommittal ("it wouldn't be correct in my eyes to say it's certain in
any way that people with ASD have a ToM deficit"). My knowledge has evolved
along with this conversation (hence why we may have seemed 'stuck'), so
perhaps my conclusive tone of writing was inappropriate, which may have
created a false impression of certitude.

Back when I was in school for mathematics and taking a few grad classes (my
math knowledge drained out unfortunately quickly) I was told by a colleague
that the Riemann Zeta hypothesis was generally regarded as 'true', and that
it's not uncommon for mathematicians to do research proving theorems on the
condition that the Riemann Zeta hypothesis is true. Point being, don't think
there's anything wrong building on something which we may not yet know to be
true...as long as caveats are stated up front.

------
ajuc
My parents had 2 dogs. The smarter one understood that when she buried some
bones while the other dog watched - she later reburied it somewhere else when
the other dog was at home.

She also knew not to go into the living room while father was there (because
she was technically forbidden to do that), but went to that room when father
was away.

I'm pretty sure she had some kind of theory of mind.

~~~
marci
Maybe the other one had an undetected handicap (?)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTGdWZ-X7B0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTGdWZ-X7B0)

------
not_a_moth
I recommend Carl Safina's "Beyond Words", which is an in-depth look at
elephants, wolves, and orcas, and I recommend the audio book form, because he
rants, with sincere anger, about how obvious it is that these animals display
theory of mind.

------
WalterBright
I hope this means we'll treat them better.

~~~
mieseratte
Considering how man treats fellow man, I wouldn't get hopes up.

------
Fa1c0n
For sure, apes are very intelligent. I've seen a few clips where orphaned apes
have recognised humans years after they last met. I've also seen a case where
an orangutang was spotted using a 'spear' to catch fish.

~~~
jffhn
I heard a scientist telling about one of his colleagues that was showing
towels of different colors to an ape, to see how the ape could point to an
image or word (don't remember) corresponding to its color. At some point he
presented him with a blue towel, and the ape kept pointing at "red". After a
few retries from the scientist, the ape pointed to the little red tag of the
towel, and went laughing.

------
fallingfrog
Well I mean technically “great apes” includes humans..

------
weregiraffe
Great apes think alike.

------
pmiller2
I recognize the value in doing these experiments, but is anyone surprised? I
would have been far more surprised if our closest relatives could _not_
demonstrate a theory of mind.

~~~
mfoy_
It wasn't that long ago that people seriously debated whether animals were
actually conscious or not.

~~~
pmiller2
Oh, I know that. By all means, run the experiments and do the tests. I’m just
saying the results here are entirely unsurprising given we’re talking about
animals that are effectively 99.5% the same as us at a genetic level.

------
jeswin
>For example, if a far advanced civilization was out there, merely observing
us while they knew they had the cure to our dying loved ones and general
suffering on this planet, would we not find the only ethical solution to
provide said cure?

When we slaughter other animals by the millions (often in very painful ways)
though it can be avoided, are we in a position to ask such questions?

We're basically a cruel species lacking empathy.

~~~
etaioinshrdlu
I think one could make a good argument that in fact, humans are the species
with the most empathy, out of all other species.

The very idea of one species caring for another, which many humans do, seems
completely unique in the animal kingdom.

I would say the rest of the natural world is very ruthless. Humans have
empathy for other species, nothing else in nature seems to.

~~~
bsdz
I think there are a few counter examples. Many pet owners have posted videos
of their dogs and cats being protective of their (human) babies. In fact, Koko
the gorilla was very affectionate towards her kittens.

~~~
etaioinshrdlu
Sure, but those situations probably wouldn't arise without human guidance.

~~~
marci
Would you call torture human guidance?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcs-H5p-MYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcs-H5p-MYw)

It's an extreme situation that created this, but I think if you take species
in which empathy has been observed, and put them in a secure environment,
where they are all well fed, I don't think it's crazy to imagine that they too
will have the luxury of inter species empathy, without any human involve in
that regard. In general, "That's actually why people keeps mammals in the home
and not turtles or snake or something like that who don't have that kind of
empathy." (Moral Behaviors in animals | Franz de Waal
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJxRqTs5nk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJxRqTs5nk))

------
_-___________-_
The first sentence of the article:

    
    
      Scientists can’t agree on how the intelligence of our primate relatives, but [...]
    

What does this even mean? Is editing just not done any more? Something like
this as the _first sentence_ of an article make me doubt the quality of the
entire article, in fact the entire publication.

~~~
eyeundersand
Spot on. That the publication didn't find it worthwhile to accurately
proofread the FIRST sentence of the article signals (to me) they are not
worried about the reader's time and prevents me from taking their article
seriously.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Copy-editing is just another wasteful business expense to be cut for increased
profits. Journalism is profit-centric and copy-editors have been cut from the
NYTimes, too.

------
devoply
We need to genetically engineer all apes and monkeys towards human levels of
intelligence. It's their only hope for survival and a great hope to change our
politics for the better incorporating more of nature into our civilizations.

~~~
coldtea
Sounds more like their only hope for becoming slaves in a dystopian future
human society...

~~~
ahje
Or they could be the ones we hand over the planet to when we leave.

------
known
All humans learn in fundamentally similar ways
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles)

~~~
epaga
Not sure what you're trying to say with this. Does this belong to a different
thread? Also, note that "learning styles" has come into some intense criticism
re: its validity as of late. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism)

------
bfung
Inconclusive.(?)

It's like saying - there's a trained neural net with inputs: opacity of screen
= 1 with expected output of searching target box. When tested, similar neural
nets with similar training expected output of target box. Hence neural net has
"theory of mind"

It'd be way more conclusive if the apes knew what was going on, and then
decided to act to change the outcome.

~~~
yqx
> It's like saying - there's a trained neural net with input

It's not. There's a world of difference between a neural net and a chimpanzee.
Chimpanzees are some our closest evolutionary relatives. They are living
animals with whom we share a great deal of our DNA (98.8% seems to be an often
quoted figure). Therefore, conclusions that are likely given the observation
"neural net shows similar behavior to humans" are vastly different those given
the observation "Chimpanzee shows similar behavior to humans".

~~~
dfgdsgds
We share 90% of our DNA with cats. 99.9% with other humans. DNA sharing is a
measure whose dynamic range is blown.

That's like saying there is a 99.9% chance to survive the end of the year vs a
99% chance. Vastly different!

We share 99.9 % of our DNA with any other human being. Chimps are 12X more
different than we are to ourselves - and how different we are!

