Hauser Marc D, Glynn David, Wood Justin
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2007 Aug 7;274(1620):1913-8. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2007.0586.
When humans point, they reveal to others their underlying intent to communicate about some distant goal. A controversy has recently emerged based on a broad set of comparative and phylogenetically relevant data. In particular, whereas chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have difficulty in using human-generated communicative gestures and actions such as pointing and placing symbolic markers to find hidden rewards, domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) and silver foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) readily use such gestures and markers. These comparative data have led to the hypothesis that the capacity to infer communicative intent in dogs and foxes has evolved as a result of human domestication. Though this hypothesis has met with challenges, due in part to studies of non-domesticated, non-primate animals, there remains the fundamental question of why our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, together with other non-human primates, generally fail to make inferences about a target goal of an agent's communicative intent. Here, we add an important wrinkle to this phylogenetic pattern by showing that free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) draw correct inferences about the goals of a human agent, using a suite of communicative gestures to locate previously concealed food. Though domestication and human enculturation may play a significant role in tuning up the capacity to infer intentions from communicative gestures, these factors are not necessary.
当人类指向时，他们向他人揭示了自己想要就某个遥远目标进行交流的潜在意图。最近，基于一系列广泛的比较数据和系统发育相关数据，出现了一场争论。特别是，黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes）在使用人类产生的交流手势和动作（如指向和放置符号标记）来寻找隐藏奖励方面存在困难，而家养狗（Canis familiaris）和银狐（Urocyon cinereoargenteus）则很容易使用这些手势和标记。这些比较数据导致了这样一种假设，即狗和狐狸推断交流意图的能力是人类驯化的结果。尽管这一假设受到了挑战，部分原因是非驯化的非灵长类动物的研究，但仍然存在一个基本问题，即为什么我们现存的近亲黑猩猩以及其他非人类灵长类动物通常无法推断出主体交流意图的目标。在这里，我们通过表明自由放养的恒河猴（Macaca mulatta）能够利用一系列交流手势来定位先前隐藏的食物，从而对主体的目标做出正确推断，给这种系统发育模式增添了一个重要的变数。虽然驯化和人类文化熏陶在提升从交流手势推断意图的能力方面可能发挥重要作用，但这些因素并非必要条件。
