Rethinking mind and meaning: A case study from a co-disciplinary approach
Lead Research Organisation:
University of St Andrews
Department Name: Psychology
Abstract
In what sense are non-verbal creatures such as animals and human infants capable of thinking? Can they reason about things that they can not directly observe? Can they understand complex notions such as knowledge, causes and intentions? If they can, what makes adult human thought unique? This project brings together researchers from the humanities (e.g., linguistics and philosophy) and the sciences (e.g., psychology and biology) in a co-disciplinary effort to make progress on fundamental questions such as what is thought, what distinguishes the human and the animal minds, or what is communication.
Think about the following example: when chimpanzees see a snake, they may produce a particular vocalization that alerts other chimpanzees to the danger. Intriguingly, they are more likely to give these alarm calls when other chimpanzees are ignorant of the snake's presence, and the chimpanzees who hear the call may react as if they had seen an actual snake, even if none is actually present. Do chimpanzees recognize that an individual who saw the snake before remains knowledgeable of its location, thereby showing an ability to understand the minds of others, as humans do; and do the chimpanzee listeners 'imagine' the unseen snake just from hearing the call, as if this acted like a symbolic word?
The past few decades have seen an amazing wealth of studies like this hinting at remarkable cognitive abilities in animal communication, tool use and sophisticated social understanding, that have fascinated scientists and the general public alike. In humans, the mental life of young infants who have not yet acquired language seems to be even richer (e.g., 1 year-olds seem to appreciate not only what others know, but also when others falsely believe something).
Interpreting results like these has led to deep divisions and discussions among psychologists, biologists and theoreticians like philosophers and linguists. Although some humanists and scientists have occasionally discussed some of these issues together, no consensus has been reached on how to interpret them. Some think that they demonstrate a fundamental similarity between human and animal minds, but others argue that alternative explanations of animal feats are possible and human minds remain qualitatively different. Some of these disagreements prolong very old, unsolved problems in the sciences and humanities.
Our project proposes a "co-disciplinary" attempt (a new word, meaning that we aim to work together planning new studies as a single team, rather than simply exchanging our respective views or results) at overcoming this impasse. We want to discuss and understand together the existing ideas and views, how similar or different they are, how well they account for the existing evidence, merging our respective expertise and seeking further expertise from other disciplines and teams where necessary. We want to clarify existing ideas, but also explore new notions capable of better explaining some of the paradoxical results produced by recent science. We believe that the surprising findings with animals and infants point to the existence of "conceptual primitives" of thought that have not yet been properly characterized neither by science nor by the humanities for lack of an appropriate common framework of research. As an essential part of this "reconceptualization", we want to propose and conduct -again together as a single "co-disciplinary" team- new studies to test and fine-tune the new notions and ideas.
Finally, we propose to engage the public and school children, using our work at Edinburgh Zoo, with the process of investigating these issues in the co-disciplinary way we propose. We will make the public have access to the process of research, rather than just the results.
Think about the following example: when chimpanzees see a snake, they may produce a particular vocalization that alerts other chimpanzees to the danger. Intriguingly, they are more likely to give these alarm calls when other chimpanzees are ignorant of the snake's presence, and the chimpanzees who hear the call may react as if they had seen an actual snake, even if none is actually present. Do chimpanzees recognize that an individual who saw the snake before remains knowledgeable of its location, thereby showing an ability to understand the minds of others, as humans do; and do the chimpanzee listeners 'imagine' the unseen snake just from hearing the call, as if this acted like a symbolic word?
The past few decades have seen an amazing wealth of studies like this hinting at remarkable cognitive abilities in animal communication, tool use and sophisticated social understanding, that have fascinated scientists and the general public alike. In humans, the mental life of young infants who have not yet acquired language seems to be even richer (e.g., 1 year-olds seem to appreciate not only what others know, but also when others falsely believe something).
Interpreting results like these has led to deep divisions and discussions among psychologists, biologists and theoreticians like philosophers and linguists. Although some humanists and scientists have occasionally discussed some of these issues together, no consensus has been reached on how to interpret them. Some think that they demonstrate a fundamental similarity between human and animal minds, but others argue that alternative explanations of animal feats are possible and human minds remain qualitatively different. Some of these disagreements prolong very old, unsolved problems in the sciences and humanities.
Our project proposes a "co-disciplinary" attempt (a new word, meaning that we aim to work together planning new studies as a single team, rather than simply exchanging our respective views or results) at overcoming this impasse. We want to discuss and understand together the existing ideas and views, how similar or different they are, how well they account for the existing evidence, merging our respective expertise and seeking further expertise from other disciplines and teams where necessary. We want to clarify existing ideas, but also explore new notions capable of better explaining some of the paradoxical results produced by recent science. We believe that the surprising findings with animals and infants point to the existence of "conceptual primitives" of thought that have not yet been properly characterized neither by science nor by the humanities for lack of an appropriate common framework of research. As an essential part of this "reconceptualization", we want to propose and conduct -again together as a single "co-disciplinary" team- new studies to test and fine-tune the new notions and ideas.
Finally, we propose to engage the public and school children, using our work at Edinburgh Zoo, with the process of investigating these issues in the co-disciplinary way we propose. We will make the public have access to the process of research, rather than just the results.
Planned Impact
We anticipate that this project will have an impact upon a variety of beneficiaries in a variety of ways, both within and beyond academia. For impact within academia, we refer to the section on "Academic beneficiaries". In this section we will concentrate on impacts beyond academia.
A distinctive feature of the research center involved in the project (Living Links) is its public projection: it is not situated behind closed doors at the university, but at Edinburgh Zoo, open to the public, and has existing facilities for public engagement which we will use to disseminate our research. This will allow direct access to engagement opportunities with over 6,000,000 visitors annually drawn from a very diverse diverse demographic. We intend to engage the public with the driving principles of the project, to encourage a progression from merely marvelling at the abilities of animals to the hard work of uncovering the mysteries of how minds work and the sorts of scientific and philosophical principles that we can apply to it.
The dissemination tools used at Living Links include public static displays (e.g., posters in existing strategic positions where ongoing research is explained in lay terms to the public), short video presentations projected onto a big screen on site, and dissemination talks in the Budongo Trail auditorium.
We will provide, and where appropriate deliver, dissemination materials in these modalities to convey to the public the distinctive nature of our project, whose co-disciplinary nature of our project puts us in a unique position to reveal how science and the humanities, working together, can help us understand the deepest questions about ourselves and our place in the world.
In addition, the Zoo is engaged in an outreach programme to primary and secondary schools through its Discovery & Learning Department. Their activities are currently mostly focused on the sciences, especially ideas and findings in biology and evolution. Our project will be an opportunity to engage with this Department to introduce the interplay between sciences and humanities to primary and secondary school children, a potentially seminal way of ensuring the future of cross-disciplinary integration.
DISSEMINATION FOR PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.
One dimension of our proposed work (the reconceptualization of the interplay between implicit and explicit capacities in understanding unobservable variables) can potentially have an impact on problems of diagnosis and intervention in the clinical population of persons with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). In some types of ASC there are dissociations between implicit and explicit mechanisms of social cognition. Since creating new concepts that better account for this distinction is one of our aims, we anticipate that our findings will be of interest to scientists and practitioners working in this area. We plan to disseminate them through the meetings of the Scottish Autism Research Group and the Action on Autism Research Scotland seminar series, in which JCG is a regular participant.
Finally, throughout the project, we aim to work closely with the leadership Fellow in making our results widely available to the public and relevant academic communities, looking for important overlap and synergy with other researchers in the theme, including collaborating in the planning of and participation in large scale international events on the theme with the Fellow.
A distinctive feature of the research center involved in the project (Living Links) is its public projection: it is not situated behind closed doors at the university, but at Edinburgh Zoo, open to the public, and has existing facilities for public engagement which we will use to disseminate our research. This will allow direct access to engagement opportunities with over 6,000,000 visitors annually drawn from a very diverse diverse demographic. We intend to engage the public with the driving principles of the project, to encourage a progression from merely marvelling at the abilities of animals to the hard work of uncovering the mysteries of how minds work and the sorts of scientific and philosophical principles that we can apply to it.
The dissemination tools used at Living Links include public static displays (e.g., posters in existing strategic positions where ongoing research is explained in lay terms to the public), short video presentations projected onto a big screen on site, and dissemination talks in the Budongo Trail auditorium.
We will provide, and where appropriate deliver, dissemination materials in these modalities to convey to the public the distinctive nature of our project, whose co-disciplinary nature of our project puts us in a unique position to reveal how science and the humanities, working together, can help us understand the deepest questions about ourselves and our place in the world.
In addition, the Zoo is engaged in an outreach programme to primary and secondary schools through its Discovery & Learning Department. Their activities are currently mostly focused on the sciences, especially ideas and findings in biology and evolution. Our project will be an opportunity to engage with this Department to introduce the interplay between sciences and humanities to primary and secondary school children, a potentially seminal way of ensuring the future of cross-disciplinary integration.
DISSEMINATION FOR PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.
One dimension of our proposed work (the reconceptualization of the interplay between implicit and explicit capacities in understanding unobservable variables) can potentially have an impact on problems of diagnosis and intervention in the clinical population of persons with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). In some types of ASC there are dissociations between implicit and explicit mechanisms of social cognition. Since creating new concepts that better account for this distinction is one of our aims, we anticipate that our findings will be of interest to scientists and practitioners working in this area. We plan to disseminate them through the meetings of the Scottish Autism Research Group and the Action on Autism Research Scotland seminar series, in which JCG is a regular participant.
Finally, throughout the project, we aim to work closely with the leadership Fellow in making our results widely available to the public and relevant academic communities, looking for important overlap and synergy with other researchers in the theme, including collaborating in the planning of and participation in large scale international events on the theme with the Fellow.
Publications
D. Ball
(2017)
The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism
Gómez J
(2019)
Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior
Gómez J
(2017)
Knowing without knowing: implicit cognition and the minds of infants and animals / Saber sin saber: la cognición implícita y las mentes de niños pequeños y animales
in Estudios de Psicología
Gómez J
(2015)
Jerome S. Bruner beyond 100
Kersken V
(2020)
Capuchin Monkeys Individuate Objects Based on Spatio-temporal and Property/Kind Information: Evidence from Looking and Reaching Measures
in Animal Behavior and Cognition
| Description | Through a series of interdisciplinary seminars, workshops, and Conference symposia, combined with the "co-disciplinary" design of new experiments, we explored the problem of complex knowledge in nonverbal creatures with the following key results. 1) Cross-disciplinary collaboration is undermined by hidden conceptual confusion. Two notions emerged as specially problematic in our analysis. First, Intentionality, which in psychology refers to goals and purposes, whereas in philosophy refers to aboutness. We found that this misunderstanding, albeit already known, continues to confuse inter-disciplinary dialogue. Specifically, current debates about objective behavioural criteria for intentional communication in animals are flawed by lack of clarity about the different senses of intentionality. Our meetings (see examples in Other Outputs) have led to tentative clarification of the terminology (Zuberbühhler & Gómez, in press), but also to the conclusion that the problem is further complicated by its intimate connection to the issue of implicit knowledge (see below). Unexpectedly we discovered a similar confusion with the terms "Knowledge" and "Belief". Whereas psychologists assume knowledge to be a simpler mental state that precedes belief, much mainstream philosophy assumes the opposite. We concluded that the origin of the problem is that psychologists use the term "Knowledge" to try to capture a primitive epistemic notion logically prior to representational belief, an "implicit" form of knowledge, which in turn suffers from the problem discussed in the next section. 2) Implicit knowledge is a necessary but empty notion. We identified the notion of 'Implicit knowledge" as the key concept to characterize the thought of nonverbal creatures. However, this notion suffers from a persistent lack of conceptual definition, despite an increasing tendency to invoke it to "explain" the growing evidence for complex knowledge about unobservable things in nonverbal creatures. We traced the notion back to the beginnings of scientific psychology (e.g., Helmholtz's notion of "unconscious inferences"), and found it re-emerging under different guise over the years, but never properly defined. In our focused seminars we confronted scientists with the question of what is implicit knowledge, and found consensus that no one really knows and no satisfactory definition exists. We analyzed the notion integrating different strands of research, and concluded that lack of definition is due to a tension between attempts to reduce it either to explicit knowledge that occurs automatically and without consciousness, or automatic processes such as associative learning, which have little claim to be regarded as a true type of knowledge. We propose that these attempts are sterile, and that what is needed is a notion of "true implicit knowledge" in nonverbal minds (See Gómez et al., 2017 output publication). 3) Characterizing true implicit knowledge. We discussed how to characterise "true" implicit knowledge. In social cognition, we explored notions of coded "intentional relation" or "registration" between agents and objects, as an avenue to account for implicit mentalism. However, a persistent problem is the lack of detailed models of their mechanisms and formats. We concluded that the most promising avenue for a detailed conceptualisation of implicit knowledge lies at the confluence of traditional, but under-defined notions like "Insight", or "Schema", and contemporary connectionist or neural network simulations. Future co-disciplinary collaborations should include these disciplines alongside psychology and philosophy. (See Gómez et al, 2017, and other output publications in preparation). 4) Probing knowledge in nonverbal creatures: implicit and explicit. A flagship aspect of our project was the "co-disciplinary" execution of new studies (i.e. performing together all phases of planning, designing and implementing the experiments) with Capuchin monkeys. We soon concluded that, before targeting complex thought in this species, it was necessary to probe more basic representational capabilities. We targeted "object individuation," -the ability to track object identities through periods of unobservability -a skill frequently taken for granted in animal experiments, but that should be demonstrated before testing more complex skills. Furthermore, we used this experiment to address the key problem of the relation between implicit and explicit measures of knowledge. Using exactly the same core task (objects dropped into a "magic box" which, when found, may have changed identity or number), we found that Capuchin monkeys show an ability to represent objects individually detecting the "magic" violations in number or identity. Crucially, they demonstrate this ability not only with implicit measures but also through explicit action (both longer looking and increased manual search with unexpected outcomes). However, a fine-grained analysis of our results suggests that at the individual level there may not always be correlation between looking and search, which raises the question of whether both measures really tap onto one and the same knowledge system, and the conceptual problem of distinguishing between implicit knowledge as a distinctive way of representing the world, and implicit vs explicit measures of such knowledge. This takes us full circle to the task of conceptual clarification of the notion of implicit in science and humanities. 5) Summary and future In sum, using our "co-disciplinary" approach, we identified "implicit knowledge" as the key notion to understand the thought of nonverbal creatures. However, we also identified a fundamental conceptual fault in the lack of proper definition of this and similar notions. We explored promising avenues to conceptualise implicit knowledge as a true form of knowledge, and concluded that an even wider interdisciplinary approach is necessary to develop such notions beyond its current intuitive stance. In the process, we engaged the general public, not only with our results, but with the very process of reflection and inquiry about how to understand the minds of animals and preverbal children. |
| Exploitation Route | Academically, having proved the fecundity of our "co-disciplinary" approach, where empirical work and conceptual discussion across disciplines are inextricably combined, our intention is to apply for further funding to continue and expand the task we have initiated of clarifying the notions of implicit knowledge and the nature of nonverbal thinking. One key change we plan to introduce will be the inclusion of a wider interdisciplinary group, especially behavioral biologists and computer scientists, which in our project we identified as potential contributors of fresh new perspectives and tools for the conceptual task of defining implicit knowledge. Non-academically, we have prepared an engagement "legacy" display for further dissemination of the questions and findings of the project. This will be displayed at Living Links, Edinburgh Zoo, during part of the year 2017. Out comes of this dissemination activity will be reported in the next ResearchFish return. We also plan to apply for further funding, making use of the AHRC "Follow on Funding for Impact and Engagement" Scheme to further expand our engagement activities about the problem of animal and infant minds and how they can be investigated. |
| Sectors | Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | -We have used our findings for the design of engagement activities with the general public in Edinburgh Zoo (Part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival) and at the Fife Science Festival. Details of these are reported in the public engagement section. -We also disseminated our findings and ideas about notions of implicit knowledge to audiences of professionals and practitioners in the area of developmental disorders (Autism Spectrum). -An additional "legacy" display with interactive activities showing the process of asking and addressing our research questions was designed at the end of the award for exhibition at Edinburgh Zoo. This display is now finalized and has been running since December 2017. it contains an interactive digital design that will allow collection of data about audience reactions to the information. These will be reported next year. -One academic publication (See "Knowing without knowing" in Publicatiosn section) has been published simultaneously in English and Spanish, which ensures reaching a much wider audience among Hispanic communities beyond the limits of the English language academic world. This has now been complemented with a presentation for Spanish speaking PG students on cross disciplinary methodology as part of the Complutense Doctoral School, Madrid, UCM, Nov 2017. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
| Sector | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement |
| Amount | £15,825 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/R00465X/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 12/2018 |
| Description | "Do Animals Have Minds?" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A stand was installed at Edinburgh Zoo as part of "Edinburgh International Science Festival: Science Night at the Zoo" displaying videos, photos, and interactive charts and Games with different animals and examples of potentially intelligent activities. People were asked to answer the question "Can this animal think?" by using a vector line and stickers of the animal that could be positioned in different places. Before and after doing so, visitors could engage in dialogue with the members of the Research Team to discuss their insights and criteria. A part of the visitors were given the opportunity to rethink their responses after exposure to videos depicting unexpectedly 'thoughtful' activities by animals (e.g., flexible use of tools by birds) and discussing with the scientists. The stand was manned by a mixed team of philosophers and psychologists ( JC Gómez, D. Ball, A. Seed, and V. Kersken). The activities extended for a whole evening and were used as the pilot to develop further engagement activities. Some visitors changed their assessment of the intelligence of particular animals in reaction to the information provided and engaged in the difficulty of defining what it is to think, especially in creatures without language. The activity was advertised at the Edinburgh Zoo Website as part of the 2016 Science Night (site no longer available online). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | 'To be and not to be' the puzzle of implicit knowledge. Interdisicplinary Parmenides Workshop: ""The Conceptual Foundations of Science: Rethinking Matter - Life - Mind"". Tegersee, Germany, September 18 - 21, 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was an interdisciplinary workshop organized by the Parmenides Foundation with participants from Psychology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Biology, Physics, etc. The main aim was to explore new approaches to rethink the foundations of the scientific approach to the traditional big issues in science from new, crossdisciplinary perspectives. I discussed the results and implications of our AHRC project and the problem of implicit knowledge. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.parmenides-foundation.org/events/workshops/workshop-the-conceptual-foundations-of-scienc... |
| Description | Anstruther Science café: What do animals think about? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On Feb 25th 2016, Derek Ball, member of the AHRC Rethinking Mind and Meaning Project, gave a talk on the problem of animal thought and what it can be about, followed by open discussion with attendants, at the Anstruther Science café. The event was addressed to and attended by general members of the public (about 15 people). There was a lively discussion and the event has been recorded in the Science Café web set together with some of the slides used at the presentation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/anstruthersciencecafe/?fref=photo |
| Description | Autism Summer School seminar talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was a seminar talk followed by debate on the relevance of the implicit/explicit cognitive distinction for understanding autism spectrum disorders. It was offered by Dr. JC Gómez as part of a summer school on Autism for an audience of Spanish practitioners and students ("Trastorno del Espectro del Autismo: perspectives actuals", Avila, Spain,18-22 July 2016). The debate was about practical applications of this conceptual distinction for the design of intervention technique for autism. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Café Scientifique at Edinburgh Zoo 23.11.2015 "Why are there no chimpanzee space stations? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The primary purpose of this presentation, paired with another talk/discussion on the abilities of animals to understand others thoughts (by Verena Kersken), as to raise public awareness on our ongoing AHRC project and other relevant research activities at the School of Psychology Café Scientifique at Edinburgh Zoo 23.11.2015 "Why are there no chimpanzee space stations? The presentation was focused on the sort of questions about human uniqueness addressed in the project, rather than results, as a way of highlighting the importance of que questions addressed and their interdisciplinary nature. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Do You Mind? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The activity built and expanded upon a previous "Do animals think?" display and event at Edinburgh Zoo. It took place in Cowdenbeath Leisure Centre as part of the Fife Science Festival (May 7th-8th 2016) Using improved materials, based on feedback from the previous activity, we created a stand with video, photo, and games displays, manned by the scientists involved in the project (V. Kersken, D. Ball, A. Seed). People were invited to watch the videos, play with the objects (simulating experiments done to test intelligence in animals and young children), chat with the scientists, and evaluate to what extent different animals can be credited with thinking using display charts. -Official attendance record: 1430 people (662 adults, 768 children). -Charts summarizing the views of visitors on different animals were generated during the event. -In official surveys after the event, many visitors commented that the felt the Science Fife event as a whole got children engaged in science, and several singled out our activity as the best part of the Cowdenbeath event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Do you mind? Exhibition |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Exhibition at Edinburgh Zoo (Panels and Interactive screens) showing the conceptual and empirical results of the project Rethinking Mind and Meaning. The exhibit is designed to provide information to the visitors of Edinburgh Zoo (general public and Schools) on the problem of animal minds, and then ask their views on a number of questions concerning the degree of intelligence displayed by different animal species and how this can be tested and discussed scientifically. The interactive display is designed to collect data on visitors responses. The exhibit is ongoing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
| Description | Explorathon Public Lecture |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public lecture on animal minds and how to explore them at Explorathon, St Andrews, 30/09/2016, delivered by Derek Ball. This talk was part of a large engagement event organised by the University of St.Andrews at the Byre theatre. After the talk, public (general public and students from different departments) stayed for questions and discussion afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Primary School Workshop (Kingsbarns) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This was a Workshop with Kingsbarns Primary School pupils (children from P3-P7) on philosophy in general and philosophical issues about animal minds and how they can be addressed by scientists and philosophers in collaboration. The activity was interactive and conducted by Dr. Derek Ball. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Scientific methodology in interdisciplinary research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on cross disciplinary methodology at the Postgraduate Course organized by the Escuela Complutense de Doctorado, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, 22-23 Nov 2017. Presentation was based on examples from the Rethinking Mind and Meaning project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Seminar Presentation: 'Ostensive communication in primates - A tale of implicit understanding'. SOMICS 14th SYNERGY MEETING, St Andrews. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk followed by seminar discussing the notion of implicit understanding as applied to the problem of ostensive communication with interdisciplinary experts as part of the working seminar meeting of SOMICS 14th SYNERGY MEETING, St Andrews, 30 July - 3 August 2018. The meeting included some of the world leading experts on evolutionary and developmental perspectives on intentional and ostensive communication. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Wolfgang Köhler & the chimpanzees of Tenerife: Intelligence and knowledge without language. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A talk followed by debate on the historical origins of the the notion of animal intelligence and practical knowledge in the primatological work of W. Köhler, and its relevance for current debates on the problem of implicit nonverbal cognition. This was delivered in Spanish to UG and PG students (as well as linguists, physicians, philosophers, and psychologists) in the University of La Laguna, Tenerife, next to the remnants of the old Research Station Both students and academics communicated how their views about the multidisciplinary significance of that historical work and its contemporary relevance had been changed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |