Assessing the validity of ape-human comparisons: A reply to Boesch (2007).
Abstract
Boesch (2007) criticizes research comparing ape and human cognition on the basis of both internal and external validity. The authors show here that most of those criticisms are not valid because: (i) most threats to internal validity (e.g., conspecific experimenters for humans but not apes) are controlled for experimentally; (ii) externally, there is no empirical evidence that captive apes have fewer cognitive skills than wild apes and indeed some evidence (especially from human-raised apes) that they have more; and (iii) externally, there is no empirical evidence that Western middle-class children have different cognitive skills from other children at very early ages in basic cognitive domains. Although difficult, with appropriate methodological care, experimental cross-species comparisons may be validly made.
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Actual comparisons of problem-solving behavior are essential for testing hypotheses regarding cognitive evolution.
“Thus, actual comparisons of problem-solving behavior are essential for testing hypotheses regarding cognitive evolution (Tomasello and Call 2008).”
From How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology (2012) · cites this paper as Tomasello and Call 2008
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- Authors
- Tomasello, M., & Call, J.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Venue
- Journal of Comparative Psychology
- Published
- 2008
- Volume
- 122
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 449-452
- ISSN
- 0093-4127 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2087
- 0735-7036
- OpenAlex
- W1979862862
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 4.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of comparative psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- internal validity, generalizability, captive apes, wild apes, child cognitive development, experimental design
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Appetitive Behavior, Aptitude, Child, Pan troglodytes, Humans, Motivation, Problem Solving, Social Environment, Species Specificity, Selection Bias, Personal Construct Theory
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