We've been thinking about how does this play out in the real world? Right? It seems like other primates could potentially jump into your head but they don't do it automatically. And so we're actually is it then an issue of like our our understanding of causality Are we more likely to come up with complex causal schemes for? Natural phenomena as well if you show somebody, you know like the uh those those complicated. What do you call those? Goldberg goes go. Yeah, rubed Goldberg stuff.
Special guest Laurie Santos (Psychology, Yale) joins us to talk about what animal cognition can tell us about human nature. Why are other primates better at resisting the misleading influence of others than humans? Is conformity a byproduct of our sophisticated cultural learning capacities? Are we more like Chimpanzees or Bonobos? Why does Dave spend so much time writing Smurf fan fiction? [Smurf you, Tamler. -dap]. Also, Dave and Tamler talk about a scathing review of Malcolm Gladwell's new book, and Eliza Sommers poses the question of the day. This was a fun one.
Links
- Comparative Cognition Laboratory [yale.edu]
- Laurie Santos and Jesse Bering on The Mind Report [bloggingheads.tv]
- Buy Jesse Bering's latest book "Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us" [amazon.com affiliate link]
- Philospher's Pipe (a directory of podcasts related to philosophy) [philosopherspipe.com]
- Smurfette [wikipedia.org]
- Horner, V., & Whiten, A. (2005). Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens). Animal cognition, 8(3), 164-181.
- Kovács, Ã. M., Téglás, E., & Endress, A. D. (2010). The social sense: Susceptibility to others’ beliefs in human infants and adults. Science, 330(6012), 1830-1834.
- True Bonobo Love [youtube.com]
- Bonobos vs. Chimps [youtube.com]
- What does the fox say? [youtube.com]
- "The Trouble With Malcolm Gladwell." by Christopher Chabris [Slate.com].
- "Christopher Chabris Should Calm Down" by Malcolm Gladwell [Slate.com]
Special Guest: Laurie Santos.
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