Apes, Monkeys, Children, and the Growth of Mind (The Developing Child)

Juan Carlos Gomez

ISBN 10: 0674022394 / ISBN 13: 9780674022393

Verlag: Harvard University Press 2006-09-01, 2006

Beschreibung

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 6666-WLY-9780674022393

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: Apes, Monkeys, Children, and the Growth of Mind (The Developing Child)
• Verlag: Harvard University Press 2006-09-01
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 0674022394
• ISBN-13: 9780674022393
• Einband: Paperback
• Zustand: New

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

What can the study of young monkeys and apes tell us about the minds of young humans? In this fascinating introduction to the study of primate minds, Juan Carlos Gómez identifies evolutionary resemblances―and differences―between human children and other primates. He argues that primate minds are best understood not as fixed collections of specialized cognitive capacities, but more dynamically, as a range of abilities that can surpass their original adaptations.

In a lively overview of a distinguished body of cognitive developmental research among nonhuman primates, Gómez looks at knowledge of the physical world, causal reasoning (including the chimpanzee-like errors that human children make), and the contentious subjects of ape language, theory of mind, and imitation. Attempts to teach language to chimpanzees, as well as studies of the quality of some primate vocal communication in the wild, make a powerful case that primates have a natural capacity for relatively sophisticated communication, and considerable power to learn when humans teach them.

Gómez concludes that for all cognitive psychology’s interest in perception, information processing, and reasoning, some essential functions of mental life are based on ideas that cannot be explicitly articulated. Nonhuman and human primates alike rely on implicit knowledge. Studying nonhuman primates helps us to understand this perplexing aspect of all primate minds.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Juan Carlos Gómez is a Reader in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.