The goggles experiment: can chimpanzees use self-experience to infer what a competitor can see?. (July 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Karg, Katja; Schmelz, Martin; Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael
• Is Part Of: Animal behaviour. Volume 105(2015)
• Page Start: 211
• Page End: 221
• Publication Date: 2015-07
• Subjects: chimpanzee -- experience projection -- perspective taking -- social cognition -- theory of mind; Animal behavior -- Periodicals; 591.5
• DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.04.028
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0003-3472

Abstract

Abstract : In two experiments, we investigated whether chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, can use self-experience to infer what another sees. Subjects first gained self-experience with the visual properties of an object (either opaque or see-through). In a subsequent test phase, a human experimenter interacted with the object and we tested whether chimpanzees understood that the experimenter experienced the object as opaque or as see-through. Crucially, in the test phase, the object seemed opaque to the subject in all cases (while the experimenter could see through the one that they had experienced as see-through before), such that she had to use her previous self-experience with the object to correctly infer whether the experimenter could or could not see when looking at the object. Chimpanzees did not attribute their previous self-experience with the object to the experimenter in a gaze-following task (experiment 1); however, they did so successfully in a competitive context (experiment 2). We conclude that chimpanzees successfully used their self-experience to infer what the competitor sees. We discuss our results in relation to the well-known 'goggles experiment' and address alternative explanations. Highlights: We gave chimpanzees two novel tests of mindreading. Chimpanzees successfully use self-experience to predict what a competitor can see. Apes thus show that they attribute their own (perceptual) experience to others.