Costes-Thiré Morgane, Levé Marine, Uhlrich Pierre, Pasquaretta Cristian, De Marco Arianna, Thierry Bernard
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie.
Fondazione Ethoikos.
J Comp Psychol. 2015 Aug;129(3):304-10. doi: 10.1037/a0039294. Epub 2015 May 25.
Whereas most experiments indicate that monkeys have no theory of mind, a study carried out by Wood and collaborators (2007) claimed that they can make inferences about the intentions of another individual. We applied the experimental procedure devised by these authors to investigate whether monkeys can recognize goal-directed actions. We tested 16 Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and 12 tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella). Each subject was submitted to 24 trials in randomized order. The experimenter presented 2 containers, 1 of which was potentially baited with a food reward. After the experimenter had either intentionally or accidentally made an action on 1 of the containers, the subject was asked to select 1 of them. We found that individuals in both species failed to distinguish between accidental and intentional actions. However, they displayed a significant preference for the container touched by the experimenter in the hand conditions, and not in the elbow conditions. These results do not support those reported by Wood and collaborators, but they are consistent with other studies concluding that monkeys are not capable of mind reading.
虽然大多数实验表明猴子没有心理理论，但伍德及其合作者（2007年）进行的一项研究声称，它们能够推断另一个个体的意图。我们采用了这些作者设计的实验程序来研究猴子是否能够识别目标导向的行为。我们测试了16只汤基猕猴（Macaca tonkeana）和12只簇绒卷尾猴（Sapajus apella）。每个受试者按随机顺序接受24次试验。实验者展示2个容器，其中1个可能装有食物奖励。在实验者有意或无意地对其中1个容器采取行动后，要求受试者选择其中1个。我们发现两个物种的个体都无法区分偶然行为和故意行为。然而，在手部条件下，它们对实验者触碰过的容器表现出显著偏好，而在肘部条件下则没有。这些结果不支持伍德及其合作者报告的结果，但与其他得出猴子没有读心术能力的研究结果一致。
