Profile of Michael Tomasello
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PROFILE PROFILE Profile of Michael Tomasello Jennifer Viegas, Science Writer Michael Tomasello’s insights, gleaned from nearly theory, appealed to Tomasello, who also admired three decades of research on great apes and chil- the work of Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Both dren, help answer a fundamental question: How do Vygotsky and Bruner emphasized the critical roles humans differ from other great apes in cognition and that social interactions and culture play in human sociality? Tomasello, a professor of psychology and cognitive development. neuroscience at Duke University, has applied a Guiding Tomasello’s studies was his thesis advisor comparative and developmental approach toward Ernst von Glaserfeld. “Von Glaserfeld was forced to leave seeking answers. His studies on the psychological the University of Vienna because of the Nazi threat, which processes of social cognition, social learning, coop- resulted in his having no formal degrees, and yet he eration, and communication shed light on human obtained a faculty position,” Tomasello says. Von Gla- uniqueness as well as on the cognitive abilities of serfeld, Piaget, Bruner, and Vygotsky were all construc- our closest ape relatives. Tomasello, who is emeritus tivists who believed that human knowledge is constructed director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An- from social and other experiences. thropology, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017. His Inaugural Article (IA) explores Comparative Studies on Social Learning and why human infants and great apes are capable of pass- Culture ing some tests of social cognition, whereas only older Upon earning his doctoral degree in 1980, Tomasello children can pass others. became an assistant professor, and later, full professor of psychology at Emory University, where he also served as Early Influences an adjunct professor of anthropology. His initial research Born in 1950 in Bartow, Florida, was solely on children, but that would soon change. He Tomasello recalls being first accepted a position in 1982 as an affiliate scientist in psy- drawn to his field while he was chobiology at the Yerkes Primate Center, where he stayed an undergraduate at Duke until 1998. “Yerkes is where it all came together for me,” University. He says, “I took a Tomasello says. “I had access to both chimps and kids, class on biological psychology and therefore could conduct comparative experiments.” that was fantastically interest- The first experiment concerned how chimpanzees ing, and I realized this was and two-year-old children learn to use tools (1). The somethingyoucoulddofora study concluded that chimpanzees emulate, while chil- living.” After earning a bache- dren imitate. Chimpanzee culture is tentative and fragile, lor’s degree in psychology in as a result, according to Tomasello and his colleagues, 1972, he entered the University who later showed that human culture accumulates of Georgia’sexperimentalpsy- modifications and ratchets up in complexity over time (2). chology graduate program. His The research was highlighted in two books focused on focusthenwasonthetheoret- primate cognition (3) and the cultural origins of human ical framework of Jean Piaget, a cognition (4). In the latter, Tomasello argued that only Swiss psychologist known for his one known biological mechanism could bring about research on child development. the changes separating human beings from other great Tomasello also followed the re- apes: “This biological mechanism is social or cultural search of Jerome Bruner, who transmission, which works on time scales many orders was a pioneer in the field of of magnitude faster than those of organic evolution.” cognitive psychology. Bruner’s multidisciplinaryapproach,com- Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis Michael Tomasello. Image courtesy of The bining anthropology, psychol- From 1998 to 2018, Tomasello served as codirector of Jacobs Foundation. ogy, linguistics, and literary the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Published under the PNAS license. This is a Profile of a member of the National Academy of Sciences to accompany the member’s Inaugural Article on page 8491. Published online August 13, 2018. 8466–8468 | PNAS | August 21, 2018 | vol. 115 | no. 34 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1812244115 Downloaded by guest on September 23, 2021 During this period, he was also an honorary professor of functional theory of language development (11). The psychology at the University of Leipzig and codirector of theory holds that language structure emerges from use the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Center in Leipzig. In 2016 and relies upon two basic skills: intention reading and he became a professor of psychology and neuroscience pattern finding. He writes, “When human beings use at Duke University. Research at these and other institutions symbols to communicate with one another, string- enabled Tomasello and coworkers (5) to develop the ing them together into sequences, patterns of use cultural intelligence hypothesis, which argues that humans emerge and become consolidated into grammatical possess a species-specific set of social-cognitive skills, constructions.” emerging early in ontogeny, for participating and ex- His extensive research on human and nonhuman changing knowledge in cultural groups. primate communication was summarized in the 2008 Tomasello and his colleagues tested the hypothesis book, Origins of Human Communication (12). It includes by giving cognitive tests to children and nonhuman his team’s findings on gestures, which chimpanzees primates. “This was a huge study involving 106 chim- also use for communication. Tomasello, however, con- panzees, 32 orangutans, and 105 2.5-year-old children,” cluded that chimpanzee gestures are not aimed at Tomasello says. The researchers found that chimpan- establishing joint attention, whereas both human ges- zees and children had similar physical world-related tures and language exhibit shared intentionality. cognitive skills but that children possessed more so- phisticated social abilities than nonhuman primates. Evidence That Chimpanzees Possess Theory of Mind Shared Intentionality, Collaboration, Social A trio of studies conducted by Tomasello (13–15) Norms demonstrate that chimpanzees possess at least some As a specification of the cultural intelligence hypoth- form of theory of mind, which is the ability to attribute esis, Tomasello proposes that a crucial difference mental states to oneself and to others. An innovative between human cognition and that of other species is series of experiments provided the evidence. The re- shared intentionality: the ability to participate with searchers showed that when chimpanzees were in others in collaborative activities with shared goals and competition for food with a person, they chose to intentions. After attending a 2001 talk on collective approach a contested food item via a route hidden intentionality presented by the philosopher Margaret from the competitor’s view. Chimpanzees are there- Gilbert, Tomasello discussed the concept with his team. fore skillful at manipulating how others can see them. “And it occurred to us that accounts of shared inten- In a 2008 article, Call and Tomasello (16) inter- tionality—which are fundamentally about cooperating preted these findings as indicating that the key dif- in everything from taking a walk together to creating a ference between chimpanzee and human cognition is social institution—might provide a powerful theoretical that apes have a kind of perception–goal psychology, framework for unifying the differences we were seeing whereas humans have a full-blown belief–desire psy- between great apes and human children across many chology, implying that nonhuman primates do not psychological domains,” Tomasello later wrote (6). understand beliefs in the human-like way as mental Tomasello (7) determined that great apes and representations that might or might not match reality. some children with autism understand the basics of intentional action but do not participate in shared How Children Understand False Beliefs intentionality. They found that the basics of shared More recently, Tomasello and coworkers (17) applied intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 an anticipatory looking test, originally developed for months of life by intertwining two distinct ontogenetic human infants, to a study involving three great ape pathways. The first, applicable to all apes, allows for species. The nonhuman primates looked in anticipa- understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and tion at an agent who was acting on a location where he intentional agents. The second is a human-specific falsely believed an object to be, even though the apes motivation to share emotions, experiences, and ac- themselves knew that the object was no longer there. tivities with others. The results suggest that great apes operate with an In another study, Tomasello (8) showed that young understanding of false beliefs comparable to that of children share resources with others more equitably in human infants. However, children aged four to five collaborative activities than they do in other situations. years begin to demonstrate a sophisticated understanding Collaboration had no such effect on chimpanzees. of both true and false beliefs (18). Humans’ desire to distribute resources fairly may have Tomasello’s IA presents a theory explaining why its evolutionary roots in the sharing of the rewards of great apes and infants pass some false belief tests but collaborative