Caruso's Hypothesis and Methods to Study Closest Ape Species Possess a “Theory of Mind”

Scientific Analysis
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Scientific Analysis
What hypothesis was tested?
“Chimps May Be Capable of Comprehending the Minds of Others” by Catherine Caruso shows an experiment that reveals how closest ape species possess a “theory of mind.” Fumihiro Kano, a co-leader of the study from Kyoto University’s Kumamoto Sanctuary, and Christopher Krupenye from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology tested the hypothesis of whether orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos, possess the understanding of false belief (Caruso, 2016). Besides, the ability to know others’ perspectives and mental states has been considered a unique trait of humans for an extended period.
How was it tested?
The hypothesis was tested by conducting an experiment involving a scientist holding a stick and a researcher dressed in a King Kong suit. During the study, orangutans, bonobos, and chimpanzees, were invited to sit in a room one at a time to watch a sequence of scenarios on the video monitor while drinking juice. An infrared camera positioned below the video monitor recorded where the tested animal was looking as the scenes unfolded (Caruso, 2016). Researchers used an ape-like character dressed in a gorilla suit to ensure that the animal participants paid attention to the experiment. Besides, apes are obsessed with social information within their group, which is similar to humans. The experimental setup was a simple false-belief test that utilizes an eye-tracking strategy known as anticipatory looking, which was designed for human babies. In one instance, King Kong pretended to attack the researcher and hid in one of the hay bales while the researcher observed. In another scenario, King Kong moved from one hay bale to another while the researcher had departed. Other scenarios depicted King Kong hiding a stolen rock under the boxes and removing it while the researcher was gone. Kano and Krupenye concluded that all the animal participants looked at the box or hay bale where they last saw the rock or King Kong hiding (Caruso, 2016). Overall, researchers made it clear that apes have a basic understanding of false beliefs, which is the foundation of the “theory of mind.”
Was the hypothesis supported or rejected?
The hypothesis was supported. For many years, individuals thought that false-belief understanding is a trait unique to humans only. However, the apes' experiment revealed a mental continuity between humans and great apes, said Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University. Tecumseh Fitch, a cognitive scientist and evolutionary biologist at Vienna University, asserted that the study showed that human species might be the only one with "theory of mind." Robert Lurz from Brookl...