Reports

Program No.17-002 (Joint Research)

Information exchange on bodily imitation in great apes and lecture in international workshop

By Myowa Masako (The University of Shiga Prefecture)

Period of visit: 26th April 2005 - 18th May 2005.

1) Burgers' Zoo, Arnhem:

 I observed and recorded the social behaviors of the Arnhem Zoo chimpanzees (gestures, eye-contact, joint attention and so on) over one week. I met Dr. Jan A.R.A.M. van Hooff and discussed social cognition of captive chimpanzees, by referring to relevant studies that we have conducted. 

 

2) Max Plank Institute, Leipzig:

 I visited the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center, where four species of the great apes are kept and studied. After that, I met Dr. Michael Tomasello, Dr. Josep Call and other graduate students, and discussed recent researches on chimpanzee social cognition and several possible future directions of this study. At the seminar, I talked on our recent works on the chimpanzees' early social cognition. 

 

3) Lund University:

 The International Workshop, "Semiotic Development in Ontogeny and Phylogeny" was held at the Lund University, Sweden (organized by the projects　"Language, Gestures and Pictures in the Perspective of Semiotic Development " and "Stages in the Development and Evolution of Sign Use "). I gave a talk entitled "Evolutionary foundation and development of bodily imitation". Dr. Brian MacWhinney, Dr. Jordan Zlatev, and other cognitive scientists, linguists, developmental psychologists presented a talk on their recent studies. We discussed the unique human intelligence from evolutionary and developmental perspectives.

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