The human capacity for rational thought makes us unique among the animal kingdom, according to the wise ancient opinion. Aristotle. However, a growing body of research suggests that rationality may not be such a distinctive human quality as we might think.
IN study recently published in the journal Scienceresearchers from the Amba Island chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda presented chimpanzee with two boxes: one with food and one without snack. They were initially given a clue as to which of them had the food. The team then presented the chimpanzees with successive clues of varying strength about which one contained the snack.
“When the initial evidence was strong, chimpanzees stuck with their original choice; when new evidence clearly outweighed the first, they changed their choice.” Hannah SchleihaufAssociate Professor of Developmental Psychology at Utrecht University and co-author of the study, says Popular Science.
Schleihauf and her colleagues also used computer models to confirm that chimpanzees' responses matched rational strategies for belief revision. In other words, they ensured that primates practiced honest reasoning rather than, for example, simply favoring the most recent evidence presented. Researchers typically associate this kind of reasoning with children around four years of age.
“The most striking thing is that the chimpanzees also showed metacognitive sensitivity to evidence,” Schleihauf continued. Metacognition this awareness and understanding of our thought processes.
“Not only did they adjust their choices, but they did so in a way that suggested they were keeping track of the evidence base for their beliefs: when previous evidence was disproven, they revised their beliefs accordingly,” she explains. “This indicates that belief revision based on weighing evidence—a key feature of rationality long thought to be unique to humans—is also present in chimpanzees.”
The study also suggests that there is not as dramatic a difference between human and animal cognitive abilities as we once believed. According to Schleihauf, it is more like a gradual continuum of rational reasoning.
However, this study provides more than just an interesting discovery about one of our closest primate relatives. According to the team, the results have several practical applications.
For example, “the demonstration of rational belief revision in chimpanzees provides a powerful comparative basis for understanding the evolution of human thought,” Schleihauf said. Having determined which aspects of rationality people share with chimpanzee Compared to those that are unique to us, researchers will be able to better understand which ones “develop early in children, which are culture-specific, and which rely on uniquely human forms of social learning, such as teaching or reasoning.”
She adds that the study is important for animal conservation and welfare as it further justifies the protection of great apes, improved ethical standards in research and conservationand creating more cognitively stimulating habitats in nature reserves and zoos.
Ultimately, the article joins many recent research suggesting that people are simply not as unique as we thought.
