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The Chimpanzee Mind: in Search of the Evolutionary Roots of the Human Mind

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The Chimpanzee Mind: in Search of the Evolutionary Roots of the Human Mind Anim Cogn (2009) 12 (Suppl 1):S1–S9 DOI 10.1007/s10071-009-0277-1 REVIEW The chimpanzee mind: in search of the evolutionary roots of the human mind Tetsuro Matsuzawa Received: 25 September 2008 / Revised: 3 August 2009 / Accepted: 4 August 2009 / Published online: 29 August 2009 © Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of Keywords Chimpanzee · Psychophysics · Comparative Japanese primatology. Kinji Imanishi (1902–1992) Wrst vis- cognitive science · Field experiment · Participation ited Koshima island in 1948 to study wild Japanese mon- observation · Ai project keys, and to explore the evolutionary origins of human society. This year is also the 30th anniversary of the Ai pro- ject: the chimpanzee Ai Wrst touched the keyboard con- Sixty years of Japanese primatology and the Ai project nected to a computer system in 1978. This paper summarizes the historical background of the Ai project, The year 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the birth of Japanese whose principal aim is to understand the evolutionary ori- primatology. Kinji Imanishi (1902–1992) Wrst arrived on gins of the human mind. The present paper also aims to Koshima island to study Japanese monkeys in the wild on 3 present a theoretical framework for the discipline called December 1948 (Matsuzawa and McGrew 2008). Imanishi comparative cognitive science (CCS). CCS is characterized and his colleagues were interested in the evolutionary origins by the collective eVorts of researchers employing a variety of human society. They thus decided to study monkey socie- of methods, together taking a holistic approach to under- ties, exploring various aspects of ecology and behavior: domi- stand the minds of nonhuman animals. While the research- nance rank, breeding season, solitary males, matrilineal ers of animals usually carry out experiments in the lineage, vocal communication, and cultural traditions such as laboratory and conduct observational studies in the natural sweet-potato washing (Hirata et al. 2001; Matsuzawa 2002). habitat, a diVerent permutation is also possible. Field exper- Sixty years later, researchers from Kyoto University still con- iments can be carried out in the natural habitat, and obser- tinue the long-term observation of the wild monkeys on vational studies can be in the laboratory. Such a two-by- Koshima (Fig. 1)—they have so far recorded the history of two contingency table based on location and research eight generations. Thanks to the eVorts of Imanishi and his col- method thus provides the basis for a holistic approach. CCS leagues in Japan and later in Africa, the Japanese government provides a unique window on understanding the chimpan- founded the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University zee mind as a whole. The studies of the chimpanzee mind (KUPRI) in 1967. To the present day, KUPRI continues to be may also result in illuminating the evolutionary roots of the an international center of primatology in various domains. human mind. I got into Kyoto University in 1969 when I was 18 years old and there was no entrance examination in the Univer- sity of Tokyo because of the world-wide student power Wghts against authorities (Matsuzawa 2009a). I was in This contribution represents the introduction to the Supplement Issue Kyoto University but had no interest at all in primatology “The Chimpanzee Mind”. during my time there. Following Kyoto University’s long tradition in outdoor pursuits, I became a member of the T. Matsuzawa (&) Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Academic Alpine Club of Kyoto (AACK). The club was 41 Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi 484-8506, Japan founded in 1931 (also by Imanishi and his colleagues) with e-mail: [email protected] the aim of climbing K2, the second highest mountain in the 123 S2 Anim Cogn (2009) 12 (Suppl 1):S1–S9 visual perception. The Wrst study that I was truly fascinated by was the work of Julez (1971) on binocular depth percep- tion using random dot stereograms. While when viewed monocularly the stimuli appeared no more than random black and white dot patterns, binocular vision gave subjects clear depth information. I was also fascinated by the McCollough eVect (McCollough 1965), a contingent color after-eVect dependent on the orientation of white–black grating patterns. In both cases, humans experience psycho- logical phenomena that cannot be explained by the proper- ties of the physical world alone. Nevertheless, through the study of visual perception, I recognized that the eyes were simply a window to the outer world. It is not the eyes but Fig. 1 Sweet-potato washing by a Japanese monkey on Koshima is- the brain that really perceives and interprets this world. land (photo by Tetsuro Matsuzawa) My research interest shifted from wanting to understand why we have two eyes to why we have two brain hemi- spheres. This happened to coincide with Sperry and world, yet to be conquered at the time. Thus, in my early Gazzaniga’s studies with a split-brain patient, and their career, I was a Himalayan mountaineer. I joined the discoveries of the functional asymmetry of the left–right AACK expedition to one of the virgin peaks of Mount hemispheres (Gazzaniga 1970; Sperry 1974). My graduate Kangchenjunga, whose highest peak at 8,598 m makes it supervisor was the late Toshitsugu Hirano (1930–1993). In the third highest mountain in the world. I went there twice, turn, his supervisor in the United States had been James Wrst at the age of 22 in 1973, then at the age of 33 in 1984. Olds (1922–1976), who originally identiWed the “pleasure I made it to 8,250 m in Kangchenjunga without oxygen, center” of the brain, showing that electric stimulation in the but failed to reach the summit (Fig. 2). However, the fail- hypothalamus of rats could serve as a reward system (Olds ures led me to successfully reach the summit of Muztagh and Milner 1954). Under the supervision of Hirano, I began Ata (7,546 m) in Xinjiang in 1989, and to the summit of to study the reversible split-brain in rats using the technique Xixabangam (8,027 m) in Tibet in 1990. I learned a lot of cortical spreading depression, putting potassium crystals from mountaineering about the importance of planning, on the brain surface to suppress the activity of one hemi- execution, and monitoring myself. What I learned was the sphere and keep the other intact (Bures et al. 1974). I then pioneering spirits and the importance of logistics to reach shifted to a major in physiological psychology, studying to a goal. memory traces in rats. Drawing together human visual per- My major, as an undergraduate, was philosophy. How- ception and rat behavior analysis, I became interested in the ever, I did not feel I was getting much satisfaction simply study of the visual world of nonhuman animals by control- from reading books written by distinguished philosophers ling and examining their behavior. of the past. Searching for a subject that interested me more, In 1976, at the age of 26, I was appointed associate I became an experimental psychologist, focusing on human professor at the Department of Psychology at KUPRI. I became interested in animal psychophysics—an approach in which researchers attempted to understand the percep- tion of nonhuman animals through operant techniques (Blough 1955; Humphrey 1971; Stebbins 1970). My Wrst study at the institute examined visual unisotropy of orienta- tion detection in Japanese monkeys. Monkeys were sensi- tive to slight changes in the orientation of black and white stripes when these were presented vertically or horizon- tally. However, they were not sensitive to such changes in orientation when the stripes were aligned orthogonally— precisely the same phenomenon had been identiWed in humans. A year after I began at KUPRI, a chimpanzee named Ai arrived at the institute. It was Professor Kiyoko Murofushi (1927–) who planned to initiate an Ape lan- guage study in Japan in the late 1970s, and set up the pro- Fig. 2 A self-portrait on Kangchenjunga, 1984 ject with the intention that Ai would be its principal subject. 123 Anim Cogn (2009) 12 (Suppl 1):S1–S9 S3 I joined the project, and Professor Murofushi allowed me to do whatever I wished—as long as the study was in some way related to human language. The Ai project: understanding the perceptual world of chimpanzees The year 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the Ai project. The chimpanzee Ai Wrst touched a keyboard connected to a computer system on 15 April 1978. Since then, my col- leagues and I have been working towards understanding the evolutionary origins of the human mind. Our approach entails the study of the chimpanzee mind, seeking to uncover similarities and diVerences between humans and their closest evolutionary relatives. The scientiWc achieve- ments of the Ai project have been published in many arti- cles, and have also been collated in two books published by Springer (Matsuzawa 2001; Matsuzawa et al. 2006). The very Wrst day I met Ai remains vivid in my memory. It was a chilly day in November 1977. I went down to a room in the basement of the institute. There were no win- Fig. 3 Ai at the age of 4 (in 1981) dows and no light except a bulb hanging from the ceiling. A tiny chimpanzee was sitting on a bench. I looked into her ling the behavior of nonhuman primates with the help of eyes. She looked back into mine. We held each other’s computer-based equipment and operant conditioning gaze, and what surprised me most was that she showed (Matsuzawa 2003). Therefore, we decided to use a comput- signs neither of fear nor of threat. In my experience with erized system to analyze chimpanzee behavior.
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