This lecture relates, I think, to his recent book about empathy, and seems to make the broader point that, though we often blame our "animal nature" for our tendency toward violence and aggression, it seems that it is just as much empathy that is present in our genes and in our history. In other words, our natural state may not really be to be violent or aggressive, but the other way around. At least, that was a broad take-away point to me. Not really talked about much, but I think I heard it somewhere.
Anyway, it seemed as though the talk was structured so that it laid foundations for empathy by showing various abilities that animals posses and culminating with more cognitive levels of empathy.
motor empathy
- Synchronization: it exists in fish, birds (a way to protect individuals in a group)- Motor mirroring: (example, the yawning contagion -- suggests that this may be related to empathy by mentioning studies that show that austistic children, though they yawn on their own as much as anyone else, are unaffected by other people yawning.) Showed a video of a chimp yawning in response to watching a video animation of a chimp yawning. :)
This reminds me, by the way, that I should remember the significance of mirror neurons and the way our facial expressions, and eventually emotions, mirror one another, when it comes to teaching. If I would pep up some more, maybe they would too! :)
He says you find synchrony with chimps and dolphins -- they can be easily trained for synchrony because moving in sync says "if you mess with one of us, you mess with both of us" and showed video of two male chimps walking together (and also a Tony Blair/GWB clip walking together like Texans. :))
Emotional Empathy
He says that psychologists like to use a "top down" definition of empathy, focusing on cognition. It involves theory of mind, being able to mentally put yourself in someone else's shoes. There is a more emotional, "bottom up" kind of definition as well, involving "emotional contagion" like the yawning contagion.He uses a painting called "Sympathy" by Briton Riviere to illustrate this, which I thought might come in handy later.
He uses the phrase "furry carnivores" to describe our pets, which I love.
Recounts the studies that show that if a mouse sees a familiar mouse in pain, that mouse is more sensitive to pain. (Only if they see them, only if they are familiar) (Langford D.J. Mouse Study 2006). . . so it has to do with in-group issues.
He says some of this explains why women are more empathetic -- they maternal figures were meant to look after the family . . .
Reconciliation: All involved parties make up -- this is found in many animals, including dolphins.
A bystander approaching to provide consolation, however, is not even present in monkeys, but only in higher primates. Females do this more often than males.
Adopting another's perspective is a cognitive activity
Targeted helping behavior -- to do this, requires a self-other distinction, which correlates with mirror self-recognition
The elephant test, by the way, really was not performed successfully before because of the size of the mirror. (!) He showed VIDEO from inside the mirror, by the way, which was SO COOL, where you can see Happy swinging her trunk, touching the mark on her head. He says that "self awareness" is too big a term for what the Gallup mark test shows -- mirror self recognition is much more appropriate.
Spindle cells! "Only humans have spindle cells." but later, we have proved that they are in dolphins, elephants, primates. There is a correlation between spindle cells and mirror self-recognition.
He admits that bonobos are "a very cute primate species" which I love because there is often such an aversion to that kind of thing in the scientific world. This also reminds me of the Leevanhoek comment about the tiny animacules that I found so appealing before. Hmm.
Bonobos, by the way, reconcile by sex. "Every combination: male-male, male-female, female-female, except mothers won't have sex with their sons" he answers later when someone asked for clarification. He also noted that even though the gay community has adopted the bonobo as something of a mascot, there is "no penetration" but rather "scrotal rubbing" as the lady who asked the question clarified. Not sure why that's important, but its interesting. Anyway, in direct contrast to the chimpanzees, bonobos are female-dominated, gentle, and "sexy" while chimps are male-dominated, and violent, and BOTH are just as close to humans genetically.
Cultural transmission: Imanishi. In 1952, Imanishi in Japan was talking about cultural transmission, but it has been denied for a long time here ("only humans can imitate" people used to say.) So they did chimp experiments to show mimicry and to look at cultural transmission.
Cooperation and Fairness
He showed a video of elephants pulling a big thing cooperatively (video down from the top) that was really beautiful. Josh Plotnik is where it came from.Reciprocal altruism -- grooming and food-sharing evidenced in [primates?]
"Only humans have a sense of fairness" not true. There is a study with dogs where 2 dogs will both "give a paw" if there is no reward, but if one dog gets a reward and the other doesn't, neither of them will do it anymore. (Dogs and inequality)
Prosocial preferences
On an evolutionary scale, altruism is regulated by benefit, but doesn't mean individual instances are regulated that way (good point!)
"Only humans are altruistic."
There is a study that involves as "selfish token" and an "altruistic token". If the monkey exchanges the selfish token, only they get a treat, and the monkey in the cage next to them does not. They find that the monkeys will select to make sure both of them get a treat, even though it is NO COST TO THEM for the next door monkey to get nothing or to get a treat. They do this with kin and non-kin, but less so with strangers. (really cute video of this too)
Costly altruism is harder to test (in fact, its pretty unethical to set it up in a lab) -- mostly anecdotal information.
Empathy - it's at least as ancient as mammals. Some evidence of it in birds.
Theory of Mind
Again, another explanation of this idea which completely changes my thoughts and clarifies things! Excitement!Ok, so he says that theory of mind is a very top-down sort of idea -- meaning that you extrapolate from your own experiences about others. He doesn't use that term much because he's not sure that's what's happening. In the monkeys with the grapes and cukes, when you put up an opaque wall, the effect disappears. The monkey doesn't IMAGINE the other one getting food or not. . .
In the question and answer section, he clarified a few big concepts as well, which I didn't understand before. He said "Remember, empathy didn't evolve to include other species" but once we have empathy, we can use it for other things. Just like sex. Just because it evolves for reproduction doesn't mean we can't do whatever with it. Good point.
Also, this woman at the lecture was A FOSTER MOM FOR NIM CHIMPSKY! (Holy cow.)
Finally, there is a website here that seems to have a video of another of his lectures, which I really think I should watch.
2007 De Waal Lecture
There is also an NPR story, called Dogs Understand Fairness, Get Jealous, Study Finds that talks about dogs exhibiting an idea of the sense of fairness, which happens to cite Frans deWaal quite a bit, and some examples of primate empathy and fairness that he talks about in this lecture.
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