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Decoding Academia 8: Horner & Whiten (2005) *Video* (Patreon)

Published:
2022-05-20 23:04:03
Imported:
2026-06
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A new episode released and a Decoding Academia episode. This time on a comparative study looking at imitation in chimpanzees and humans. 

For those interested, the paper is attached below.

This is a great paper and a nice example of good evolutionarily informed research.

Enjoy!

*Audio version coming later today.

Files

Decoding Academia 8: Horner & Whiten (2005)

An examination of a neat little paper comparing chimpanzees and children on their imitation and emulation abilities.

Comments

Jesse Hodges

Very interesting conversation. Thank you. Two thoughts: 1) It would be interesting to know if the chimps imitation/emulation ratio would change is they were shown the cube and contrived method for opening by a elder/alpha/trusted chimp. 2) Matt has a striking resemblance to Sergio Aguero in this video.

Jesse Hodges

Or, also, they could have the human kids learn from a chimp and see if it changes what seems to be their inherent nature to imitate rather than emulate.

Liam Kofi Bright

Great discussion, but it was very much non obvious to me that the imitation was less sophisticated than emulation. After all I think the following is a sophisticated bit of reasoning -- I don't know why this apparently smarter and more powerful being is doing XYZ, but I am willing to bet they have a reason, better do what they do to be safe? Wait so as I say that I wonder if that is the thing they were ruling out with the two rakes experiment. Ugh not gonna read the paper just gonna assume science is fake.

Jason Trock

Nice one. Really well done conceptual review in a very short amount of time! The counterintuitive result, and the adaptive mechanism that may also be viewed today as “not as good”… unless you are going to exploit it, brings into focus many important facets of research and the conclusions one may form (and challenge.) Really good selection! I keep going back to the Simpson episode “is my brother dumber than a hamster” I suppose actual shock as a negative reward would push the boundaries of ethics.

Kirsten Greed

Really interesting comments about intentionality. I wondered if imitation is generally harder for people with attention issues... there is a paper "Children with autism do not overimitate"

Mark K

I wonder if either of you have read the essay "The Uniqueness of Man" by Julian Huxley? Available here: http://www.yorku.ca/dcarveth/Huxley.pdf Huxley states that non-human animals such as birds can only do one action at a time, and one replaces another in sequence: "the type of behaviour which had been dominant ceases to have command over the machinery of action, and is replaced by another which just before had been subordinate and latent." Whereas "one of the peculiarities of man is the abandonment of any rigidity of instinct, and the provision of association-mechanisms by which any activity of the mind, whether in the spheres of knowing, feeling, or willing, can be brought into relation with any other." In other words, one of the things that makes people special is that they have trouble making up their minds about what to do. A few more points: * The imitation vs emulation distinction puts me in mind of the famous "cargo cults" of the Pacific whose members thought that by imitating American airstrip employees they could cause planes full of cargo to land. * The book "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dörner describes a psychological experiment in which turning a knob caused some effect, but the knob and effect were completely unrelated. In this case, the subject often became quite superstitious about the numbers on the knob, saying things like "seven is a good number, I'll keep the knob there". Seems to line up with what Matt was saying in the episode.