Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- I Comparative evolutionary and developmental perspectives on gorillas and orangutans
- II Cognition and tool use in gorillas and orangutans
- III Communication in gorillas and orangutans
- IV Social cognition in gorillas and orangutans
- 14 Comparative aspects of mirror self-recognition in great apes
- 15 Deception and concealment as strategic script violation in great apes and humans
- 16 Levels of imitation and cognitive mechanisms in orangutans
- 17 Parental encouragement in Gorilla in comparative perspective: implications for social cognition and the evolution of teaching
- 18 The development of social roles in the play of an infant gorilla and its relationship to sensorimotor intellectual development
- V Epilogue
- Index of authors
- Index of subjects
17 - Parental encouragement in Gorilla in comparative perspective: implications for social cognition and the evolution of teaching
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- I Comparative evolutionary and developmental perspectives on gorillas and orangutans
- II Cognition and tool use in gorillas and orangutans
- III Communication in gorillas and orangutans
- IV Social cognition in gorillas and orangutans
- 14 Comparative aspects of mirror self-recognition in great apes
- 15 Deception and concealment as strategic script violation in great apes and humans
- 16 Levels of imitation and cognitive mechanisms in orangutans
- 17 Parental encouragement in Gorilla in comparative perspective: implications for social cognition and the evolution of teaching
- 18 The development of social roles in the play of an infant gorilla and its relationship to sensorimotor intellectual development
- V Epilogue
- Index of authors
- Index of subjects
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Ten years ago, studies of animal behavior had little to say about the existence of “teaching,” despite the years which had elapsed since the innovative attempts of Barnett (1968) and Ewer (1969) to put it on the agenda. In recent years, we have seen a new flowering of interest in the phenomenon in primates – the principal subjects of this chapter – and also in other animals. Descriptions of quite elaborate forms of behavior which have been argued to fit concepts like teaching, encouragement, and discouragement have accumulated in the course of long-term primate field studies (e.g., Van de Rijt-Plooij and Plooij, 1987; Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, 1990; Boesch, 1991) as well as in captive studies (e.g., Fouts, Fouts & Cantfort, 1989). More recently, largely qualititative observations like these have been supplemented by the first substantial quantitative analyses designed not only to describe the phenomena but to test hypotheses about the power of these types of parental behavior to influence infant development (Caro & Hauser, 1992; Maestripieri, 1995a,b, 1996). Caro and Hauser showed that, in conjunction with their own data on felids and primates, by 1992 the accumulation of empirical reports was sufficient to merit the first major review of “teaching in nonhuman animals,” teaching here being defined by its functional consequence of facilitating a juvenile's developmental progress, rather than by any deliberate intention to educate. The great apes contribute some of the most complex and interesting components of this body of evidence and these form the basis of this chapter.
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- The Mentalities of Gorillas and OrangutansComparative Perspectives, pp. 342 - 366Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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