(Friday, July 6, 2pm)
Social behaviors of nonhuman primates greatly resemble those of humans. Nonhuman primates live in large, hierarchical groups and acquire complex social information visually to guide decisions influencing themselves and others. Not surprisingly, there are vast similarities in the neurobiology of social cognition between humans and nonhuman primates.I will describe selected neurobiological mechanisms underlying social interactions in rhesus macaques. I will first discuss other-regarding preferences and social gaze dynamics between pairs of macaques in order to establish the importance of macaques' understanding others in guiding their social behaviors. A series of neurobiological finding are beginning to inform us how neurons from distinct brain regions represent the self and others as well as interactive social events. The way the primate brain computes key variables concerning self and others during social interactions may help us understand how nonhuman and human primates represent other minds.Social behaviors of nonhuman primates greatly resemble those of humans. Nonhuman primates live in large, hierarchical groups and acquire complex social information visually to guide decisions influencing themselves and others. Not surprisingly, there are vast similarities in the neurobiology of social cognition between humans and nonhuman primates. I will describe selected neurobiological mechanisms underlying social interactions in rhesus macaques. I will first discuss other-regarding preferences and social gaze dynamics between pairs of macaques in order to establish the importance of macaques' understanding others in guiding their social behaviors. A series of neurobiological findingsare beginning to inform us how neurons from distinct brain regions represent the self and others as well as interactive social events. The way the primate brain computes key variables concerning self and others during social interactions may help us understand how nonhuman and human primates represent other minds.
Dal Monte, O., Piva, M., Anderson, K. M., Tringides, M., Holmes, A. J., & Chang, S. W. (2017). Oxytocin under opioid antagonism leads to supralinear enhancement of social attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(20), 5247-5252.
Dal Monte, O., Piva, M., Morris, J. A., & Chang, S. W. (2016). Live interaction distinctively shapes social gaze dynamics in rhesus macaques. Journal of Neurophysiology, 116(4), 1626-1643.
Chang, S. W., Gariépy, J. F., & Platt, M. L. (2013). Neuronal reference frames for social decisions in primate frontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 16(2), 243-250.
While listening to your presentation, I was impressed by the quantity of neuroanatomy and neural mechanisms of the monkeys that are similar to humans. Therefore, I was wondering if there are any significant/notable differences between monkeys and humans in term of social cognition that you have observed with your researches?
ReplyDeleteI know your question is not directed at me, but I think I can at least partially answer it. Monkeys and humans very different in terms of cognition. Not as much as if you compare a fish and a human, but still there’s a difference. One of the thing that is the most obvious is that humans have a “full” theory of mind, something that the monkeys do not. By the way, when we speak of monkeys, we speak of a huge number of species (pretty much like saying birds are smart, there’s a lot of variability). There has been a lot of studies on macaques (especially rhesus, which is the species Dr. Chang sutides), and not as much on other monkeys (squirrel monkeys, proboscis, etc...). So yes, there are significant differences in terms of cognition between the two groups, theory of mind being one of them (I consider it part of social cognition since it helpls dealing with social stimuli).
Delete(Steve) There are many notable differences - macaque social behaviors are much simpler than those of humans, though they share some clear similarities as well. For example, there is a clear limit on how reciprocal they are in decision-making tasks (i.e., being nice to others doesn't get reciprocated back more than one or two trials in these animals in the task I mentioned, whereas in humans reciprocating behaviors have a much longer time scale). I think the social behaviors of the macaques resemble rudimentary components of those of humans, but it is clear that there is notable differences in complexity and abstractness.
DeleteThis "theory-of-mind" business all began with a target article 40 years ago by Premack and Woodruff in 1978 that was important and influential, but had an unfortunate title and terminology that should have been changed to something more closely reflecting what it actually showed: (1) "Can a chimpanzee detect what another chimpanzee expects, believes or thinks?"
ReplyDeletePremack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(4), 515-526.
The question is not the same as (2) "Can a chimpanzee detect what another chimpanzee will do?"
The 40 years of subsequent research (in chimps, human children, and many other species) have been devoted to working out the nuances between (1) and (2).
The underlying ability has come to be called "mind-reading" ability (which is closer to what is really meant than "theory of mind") and it has been shown pretty convincingly that in human children as well as many other species, including chimps, it's closer to (1) than to (2).
This mind-reading ability is obviously related to the ability that we call (in humans) the ability to "anthropomorphize." It's clearly an adaptive asset rather than a liability (especially in parental and social relations), even though it can of course err (with false positives as well as false negatives).
I understand the difference between (2) and (1). That being said, the fact that a chimpanzee (2) can detect what another chimp will do does not necessarily imply that this chimp (1) can detect what another chimp expects, believes or thinks? It seems to me that (2) imply (1) while it is not necessarily true that (1) imply (2)… If I am right, it means that (1) and (2) are not parallel one to the other, but serial…Following it, it is trivial that "mind-reading" is closer to (1) than to (2), am I right?
DeleteThank you Mr. Harnad for the contextualization and those references!
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DeleteEtienne Richard-Dionne, I would actually be tempted to say that 2 does not imply 1 (2 does not guarantee the presence of 1). The reason is that we can already build a probabilistic computer algorithm that's really, really good at predicting things, probably better (as in, much faster) than the smartest humans. Now, I'll admit that "predicting what you will DO" is pretty broad... but since we're talking about a general ability. A CPU playing chess against you will definitely be making predictions on your next move, etc. Or how Google is getting better and better at figuring out what people actually mean even when they spell horribly is an example.
DeleteSupporting the view that 2 implies 1 seems to me equivalent to claiming that Google, or that chess program are in the business of detecting what the cognizer interacting with them "expects, believes or thinks". I think that's taking it a bit too far for now... :)
But I'll agree that having 1 may help having some insight into someone else's next behavior. So although I wouldn't yet say that 1 implies 2, I'll say that 1 certainly looks like either it is a requirement for 2, or at least something that can contribute to 2.
I actually screwed up with the wording near the end of my previous post:
DeleteBased on my very own argument, 1 definitely isn't a requirement for 2 either. In fact, that would contradict my earlier statement about computers being able to predict behaviors but certainly not read your mind. I stand by the rest I said, though: 1 looks like it can contribute to 2, although I must admit that now, what's left of that last paragraph... does look like an extremely boring commonsense statement... ^-^;
Thank you for the talk! As I am not in biology nor in psychology, I had a question about oxytocin; in previous presentations, oxytocin was described as a hormone that permit to make a bound between two individuals but in your talk, you said that it increases preferences that are already there. So, I was wondering if those two descriptions are contradictory or complementary? Should we understand it in the way that the increase of preferences makes it possible to form a bound?
ReplyDeleteRe-listening the first question of the second panel will answer your interrogations. Mr. Ophir offers a good answer on how it is yet too conjectural to imply, in such a straightforward manner, the causal role of oxytocin in these behaviors.
DeleteTo put it simply, oxytocin mainly has for effect the diminution of «noise» in the animal's brain.
Thanks for the cue!
DeleteUne autre étude, non citée ci-haut, par Dr Chang et son équipe: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2011.00027/full (renforcement vicariant chez les macaques rhésus)
ReplyDeleteRhesus monkey’s social organisation system is based on a matriarchal dominance hierarchy, with males leaving the group during adolescence. Are there significant differences in neurobiology and cognitive abilities in other species of non human primates where the social organisation system is based on a patriarchal dominance hierarchy? More specifically, do scientist observe a greater or weaker hostile attribution bias in such species?
ReplyDeleteLarry Young argumentait que les recherches sur l’ocytocine pouvait notamment permettre de développer des traitements pour l’autisme et d’autres troubles neuro-développementaux. L’étude sur l’effet combiné de l’ocytocine et du naxolone semble augmenter les contacts visuels entre les macaques rhésus (donc, des comportements sociaux). Je comprends bien que les modèles animaux ne sont pas toujours valides et fidèles pour prédire les comportements humains, mais ce genre de recherche semble supporter les recherches animales et leur application sur notre cognition. De plus, les macaques rhésus ont un cerveau plus similaire aux nôtres (des zones homologues, comme le cortex frontal) que les campagnols des prairies. Je pense qu’on peut tirer davantage d’informations de ce genre de recherche.
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