No.237 Seminar ： From monkeys, chimpanzees, to ungulates: comparative cognition
- Gao Jie, 13th batch, Wildlife Research Center, Assistant Professor
- 2023/10/16 4:45pm
- Research Administration Building, Basement Floor (Conference Rooms 1&2) and Zoom
- English
- Onsite, and Zoom
Summary
One of the key questions in the field of cognition is how humans became what we are, or to say, how our mind is shaped. To check the evolutionary path is a reasonable approach to answer this question. However, there is no fossil of mind. Comparative cognition examines cognition in living species and compares them in an attempt to rebuild the evolutionary path of the mind. I will introduce some of my previous studies, including a comparative study in two species of monkeys, some studies in chimpanzees, and my research plan on ungulate perception as a Hakubi researcher, with a detailed introduction of the research method in this field. In the study of monkeys, we compared the social cognition in two closely related species of langurs and found that langurs that have more complex social structures showed better performance, indicating the effect of social factors in shaping animals’ minds. With chimpanzees, I did experiments on learning and perception and compared their performances with human children, leading to findings of the common and different characteristics of the two species. In ungulates, I plan to examine their perception of both domestic and wildlife species to elucidate the effect of evolution and environment on how the mind is shaped.