Comments on: The Primate Likes a Game of Ms. Pac-Man

By: Holly

Holly — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 04:39:00 +0000

What do you mean about when to catch ghosts? Avoiding them is the key to success… ah, you mean to get more points! I don’t think he gets much, if any, mileage out of how many points he wins, but rather how long he gets to play the game. I don’t know, maybe I’m goign off of how I remember playing the game – always trying to advance to the next level to keep on playing, not concerned at all about the “high score” and points. I usually avoid those wretched ghosts… I’d have to watch the video again carefully to give you a better guess about what he’s thinking.

By: Jesper

Jesper — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:07:39 +0000

Holly, very interesting!

Speaking of “theory of mind” – I am not so convinced that Kanzi really understands that much of Pac-man. It looks to me like he certainly doesn’t understand when to catch the ghosts?

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:04:14 +0000

That is indeed a bonobo, I should know, I’m a primatologist. They are also called pygmy chimpanzees but that name has fallen out of favor.

This particular bonobo, Kanzi, understands language, both spoken and via lexigrams, symbols much like Japanese kanji. You can meet Kanzi and the other bonobos who have been taught lexigrams at the Great Ape Trust:
http://www.greatapetrust.org/bonobo/meet/index.php

Kanzi & co. formerly lived at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University where they collectively demonstrated amazing abilities. I have written about Kanzi on my blog:
http://www.newfoundlandnews.blogspot.com
Check out the ToM (Theory of Mind) entry on Sun July 9.

By: Emily

Emily — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:52:24 +0000

^_^

By: Scott Jon Siegel

Scott Jon Siegel — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:56:07 +0000

I don't know much about mammals, but someone in the comments remarked that the monkey in question is not a chimpanzee, but a bonobo. If true, this is significant because Bonobos are one of the only species besides humans to engage in non-procreative sexual intercourse. Sex as play. Sex as communication. Sex as conflict resolution. They're also the only non-human apes to engage in all forms of sexual intercourse (you name it, they've done it). So what does this say about the predisposition for play? Coolest moment in that video, by the way, is when the bonobo is being chased by a ghost, encounters another ghost heading at her, and instinctively turns around to run and is caught by the first ghost. Can't even recall how many times I've done that. -sj