The Coordination of Attention and Action in Great Apes and Humans

Overview

Journal Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci

Specialty Biology

Date 2022 Jul 25

PMID 35876209

Authors

Michael Tomasello

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Great apes can discern what others are attending to and even direct others' attention to themselves in flexible ways. But they seemingly do not coordinate their attention with one another recursively-understanding that the other is monitoring their attention just as they are monitoring hers-in acts of joint attention, at least not in the same way as young human children. Similarly, great apes collaborate with partners in many flexible ways, but they seemingly do not coordinate with others to form mutually obligating joint goals and commitments, nor regulate the collaboration via acts of intentional communication, at least not in the same way as young human children. The hypothesis defended here is that it is precisely in their capacities to coordinate attention and action with others-that is, in their capacities for shared intentionality-that humans are most clearly distinguished from other great apes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.

Citing Articles

Using mobile eye tracking to study dogs' understanding of human referential communication.

Volter C, Gerwisch K, Berg P, Viranyi Z, Huber L Proc Biol Sci. 2025; 292(2040):20242765.

PMID: 39933589 PMC: 11813580. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.2765.

Object exploration is facilitated by the physical and social environment in center-based child care.

van Liempd I, Oudgenoeg-Paz O, Leseman P Child Dev. 2024; 96(1):161-175.

PMID: 39189928 PMC: 11693833. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14161.

Life history impacts on infancy and the evolution of human social cognition.

Hawkes K Front Psychol. 2023; 14:1197378.

PMID: 38023007 PMC: 10666779. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1197378.

Differences in the Social Motivations and Emotions of Humans and Other Great Apes.

Tomasello M Hum Nat. 2023; 34(4):588-604.

PMID: 37971576 PMC: 10739453. DOI: 10.1007/s12110-023-09464-0.

Empirical challenges from the comparative and developmental literature to the Shared Intentionality Theory - a review of alternative data on recursive mind reading, prosociality, imitation and cumulative culture.

Sauciuc G, Persson T Front Psychol. 2023; 14:1157137.

PMID: 37901066 PMC: 10613111. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1157137.

References

Leavens D, Hopkins W, Bard K . Indexical and referential pointing in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J Comp Psychol. 1996; 110(4):346-53. PMC: 2175394. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7036.110.4.346. View

Rekers Y, Haun D, Tomasello M . Children, but not chimpanzees, prefer to collaborate. Curr Biol. 2011; 21(20):1756-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.066. View

Wolf W, Tomasello M . Visually attending to a video together facilitates great ape social closeness. Proc Biol Sci. 2019; 286(1907):20190488. PMC: 6661344. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0488. View

Halina M, Liebal K, Tomasello M . The goal of ape pointing. PLoS One. 2018; 13(4):e0195182. PMC: 5918613. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195182. View

Liszkowski U, Carpenter M, Tomasello M . Reference and attitude in infant pointing. J Child Lang. 2007; 34(1):1-20. DOI: 10.1017/s0305000906007689. View

Liszkowski U, Carpenter M, Henning A, Striano T, Tomasello M . Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest. Dev Sci. 2004; 7(3):297-307. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00349.x. View

Melis A, Hare B, Tomasello M . Chimpanzees recruit the best collaborators. Science. 2006; 311(5765):1297-300. DOI: 10.1126/science.1123007. View

Brownell C, Carriger M . Changes in cooperation and self-other differentiation during the second year. Child Dev. 1990; 61(4):1164-74. View

Hamann K, Warneken F, Tomasello M . Children's developing commitments to joint goals. Child Dev. 2011; 83(1):137-45. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01695.x. View

10.

Kachel U, Svetlova M, Tomasello M . Three- and 5-year-old children's understanding of how to dissolve a joint commitment. J Exp Child Psychol. 2019; 184:34-47. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.03.008. View

11.

Heesen R, Bangerter A, Zuberbuhler K, Rossano F, Iglesias K, Guery J . Bonobos engage in joint commitment. Sci Adv. 2020; 6(51). PMC: 11206216. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd1306. View

12.

Tomasello M . How children come to understand false beliefs: A shared intentionality account. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018; 115(34):8491-8498. PMC: 6112688. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1804761115. View

13.

Grueneisen S, Duguid S, Saur H, Tomasello M . Children, chimpanzees, and bonobos adjust the visibility of their actions for cooperators and competitors. Sci Rep. 2017; 7(1):8504. PMC: 5561202. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-08435-7. View

14.

Herrmann E, Tomasello M . Apes' and children's understanding of cooperative and competitive motives in a communicative situation. Dev Sci. 2006; 9(5):518-29. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00519.x. View

15.

Leavens D, Russell J, Hopkins W . Intentionality as measured in the persistence and elaboration of communication by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Child Dev. 2005; 76(1):291-306. PMC: 2043155. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00845.x. View

16.

Pika S, Zuberbuhler K . Social games between bonobos and humans: evidence for shared intentionality?. Am J Primatol. 2007; 70(3):207-10. DOI: 10.1002/ajp.20469. View

17.

Melis A, Tomasello M . Chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) strategic helping in a collaborative task. Biol Lett. 2013; 9(2):20130009. PMC: 3639774. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.0009. View

18.

Wolf W, Tomasello M . Human children, but not great apes, become socially closer by sharing an experience in common ground. J Exp Child Psychol. 2020; 199:104930. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104930. View

19.

Grafenhain M, Behne T, Carpenter M, Tomasello M . Young children's understanding of joint commitments. Dev Psychol. 2009; 45(5):1430-43. DOI: 10.1037/a0016122. View

20.

Hobaiter C, Leavens D, Byrne R . Deictic gesturing in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)? Some possible cases. J Comp Psychol. 2013; 128(1):82-7. DOI: 10.1037/a0033757. View