Richard Byrne eloadasa

INVITATION to a Public Lecture by Richard W Byrne University of St Andrews, Scotland To be held at Collegium Budapest on 18 October 2001 at 6 p.m. Address: 1014 Budapest, Szentharomsag u. 2. Seeing through the surface of behaviour: Does ape imitation imply human-like perception? Which species are claimed to imitate depends which definition of imitation one takes, but there is good evidence that great apes can acquire novel, complex behaviour (partly) by imitation of skilled conspecifics. Compared with the manual skills of other non-human primates, the food-processing techniques of great apes (including chimpanzee tool use and gorilla plant gathering) are elaborate, complex and highly organized; yet this knowledge is traditional and dependent on imitation, not innate. Typically only the broad-brush, "program level" structure of the task is copied, whereas details of execution are often performed idiosyncratically. It is often asserted that, in order to imitate, an individual must understand the purpose of the behaviour and how one goes about accomplishing that purpose. Instead, I argue that sufficient information about the structure of behaviour can be extracted from watching repeated, effective actions to enable imitation without intentionality. Moreover, rather than imitation requiring prior understanding of intentions, I suggest that "perceiving" the underlying structure of action beneath the surface form of behaviour may be crucial to detection of causality and the intentions of others, in humans as well as other great apes. Bio-Bibliografia: Richard Byrne is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. In addition to The Thinking Ape (OUP, 1995), which was awarded the British Psychology Society's Book Award 1997, he is co-editor of Machiavellian Intelligence: Social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes and humans (OUP, 1988) and Machiavellian Intelligence II: Extensions and evaluations (CUP, 1997). After a degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, his PhD research was on human planning and thought. Since coming to St Andrews, he has carried out field research on baboons, chimpanzees and gorillas in Africa, on topics including behavioural ecology, vocal communication and deception, manual laterality and feeding techniques. Current projects concern the development of programs of complex manual action in great apes, and the cognition of the domestic pig. He is a founder- member of the Scottish Primate Research Group and was recently Vice President of the International Primatological Society. Selected recent papers Byrne, R W (1997) Machiavellian intelligence. Evolutionary Anthropology, 5, 135-143. Byrne, R W and Russon, A (1998) Learning by imitation: a hierarchical approach. (Target Article) Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21, 667- 721. Byrne, R W (1999) Imitation without intentionality: using string- parsing to copy the organization of behaviour. Animal Cognition, 2, 63-72. Byrne, R W (2000) The evolution of primate cognition. Cognitive Science, 24 (4) 543-570. Byrne, R W (2001) Social and technical forms of primate intelligence. In F B M de Waal (Ed) Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell us about Human Social Evolution, pp.145-172. Harvard University Press. Byrne, R W, Corp, N, and Byrne, J M (2001) Manual dexterity in the gorilla: bimanual and digit role differentiation in a natural task. Animal Cognition, 4 (2), Byrne, R W, Corp, N, and Byrne, J M (2001) Estimating the complexity of animal behaviour: How mountain gorillas eat thistles. Behaviour, 138, 525-557. Stokes, E J and Byrne, R W (2001) Cognitive capacities for behavioural flexibility in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes):The effect of snare injury on complex manual food processing. Animal Cognition, 4, 11-28 Byrne, R W (2002) Imitation of novel complex actions: What does the evidence from animals mean? Advances in the Study of Behavior, 31, 77-105. Corp, N & Byrne, R W (in press) The ontogeny of manual skill in wild chimpanzees: Evidence from feeding on the fruit of Saba florida. Behaviour. Held, S, Mendl, M, Devereux, C, and Byrne, R W (in press) Behaviour of domestic pigs in a visual perspective taking task. Behaviour. Held, S, Mendl, M, Devereux, C, and Byrne, R W (in press) Foraging pigs alter their behaviour in response to exploitation. Animal Behaviour.