Conférence - What is uniquely human ?

Dans le cadre du séminaire interdisciplinaire 2013 sur le thème "L'origine des nombres", les Archives Jean Piaget ont le plaisir de recevoir

Tetsuro MATSUZAWA, Professeur à l'Université de Kyoto

What is uniquely human ?

MARDI 14 MAI 2013 - 18h15 - UNI MAIL - salle R070

This talk aims to summarize the existing evidence for the symbolic representation of number in chimpanzees. Piaget raised the question about the developmental basis of the concept of number, while this study raised the question about the evolutionary origins. I have studied the chimpanzees both in the wild and laboratory. Laboratory studies showed that chimpanzees can represent, to some extent, both the cardinal and the ordinal aspect of number.

Through the medium of Arabic numerals we compared working memory in humans and chimpanzees using the same apparatus and following the same procedure. As a result, three young chimpanzees outperformed human adults in memorizing briefly presented numerals. However, we found that chimpanzees were less proficient at a variety of other cognitive tasks including imitation, cross-modal matching, symmetry of symbols and referents, and one-to-one correspondence. In sum, chimpanzees do not possess humanlike capabilities for representation at an abstract level. The present talk will discuss the constraints of the number concept in chimpanzees, and illuminate some unique features of human cognition.

See the home page: http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/