Metacognition

The Paleolithic Revolution of the Apes

Whereas in “simpler organisms … only an unconscious competition of uncoordinated sensorimotor systems takes place,” every elephant searching for a waterhole demonstrates consistency and persistence. This points to two constitutive features of human consciousness: “global availability and self-monitoring.”

Apparently, some mammals are capable of meeting challenges attributed to the prefrontal cortex, up to the level of metacognition, i.e., accurate self-assessment. Nevertheless, Ludwig Huber does not assume consciousness in nonhuman animals on that basis alone. For him, the following criteria are decisive:

“Perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-awareness.” According to Alexandra Schnell and Nicola Clayton (University of Cambridge) and Jonathan Birch (London School of Economics).

Ludwig Huber, The Rational Animal. Tracing Cognitive Biology, Suhrkamp, €34

“Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas … confirm the assumption that animal species phylogenetically close to humans are also capable of impressive memory performance.”

Intermediate Steps

Huber analyzes the anticipatory abilities of capuchin monkeys. Using stones, they chip fragments from blocks in order to crack fruit shells using equipment whose availability requires an “intermediate step.”

The scientist wonders whether this intermediate step is linked to a decision represented in the primate’s consciousness. He speculates:

“Did (the monkeys) first have the goal—the desired nut—in mind, then think back to cracking it with a stone, and, in order to get that stone, to chipping it out of the conglomerate rock?”

Does this correspond to planning in human dimensions?

“(We) are capable of suppressing current needs in order to satisfy later needs. We call this self-control or inhibitory control. And (we) can imagine possible or future events.”

Do nonhuman animals possess self-control and imagination?

In any case, it can be observed that dogs can resist immediate gratification in favor of a better option—albeit only over short periods.

Human cognition revolves around the spindle of imagination. Our anticipatory time travel depends on our imagination and our memory.

Tool Intelligence

Long-tailed macaques on Ko Yao Yai use stones to crack open enclosed food. Complex routines can be observed in a multilayered sequence of events. One population of coastal dwellers shows special skills in cracking shellfish. The group’s territory includes an abandoned palm oil plantation. The monkeys open the olive-like palm fruits using the same scheme they use to access shellfish contents.

Huber describes this generalization as a “young behavioral adaptation.” He speaks of a “technological response of monkeys to an anthropogenic change in their environment” and thus of a “genuine behavioral innovation.”

“Neurophysiological studies of macaques and humans suggest that tool use expands the internal representation of the actor’s limbs (hand, foot, beak, etc.).”

A research team led by Christian Rutz at the University of St Andrews in Scotland studies the manual skill of straight-billed, i.e., New Caledonian, crows. The birds are characterized by serial hook production. They do not expend effort experimenting but act like specialists who have mastered their craft effortlessly.

“Hooks were a key invention of Stone Age humans around ninety thousand years ago, because they enabled much more efficient fishing and considerably expanded the range of prey.”

Rutz attributes the hook technology of the New Caledonian crow merely to species-specific behavior. There can be no talk of “insight and innovative power.”

Again and again, Huber returns to the difference “between an intelligent result and an intelligent action.”

Many things are not intelligence and are therefore classified as “innate special adaptation without particular higher cognitive development.”

The diversity of related material points to the ability to abstract from “the specific action.” Huber assumes at least a “basic understanding” of the physical properties of objects.

Puffins scratch themselves with wooden sticks. Mangrove herons lay out bait. Bottlenose dolphins crown their snouts with sponges harvested from the seabed. Visayan warty pigs use bark and sticks for digging. Elephants swing palm fronds with their trunks. Chimpanzees collect water in leaf cups. They protect themselves with gloves and umbrellas made of leaves. Some groups hunt with wooden spears, not unlike our direct ancestors. Bearded capuchins in Serra da Capivara National Park set the standard when it comes to tool use. Occasionally they combine stones with sticks.

“According to archaeological investigations at hammering sites in Serra da Capivara National Park in Brazil, the behavior of cracking nuts … (with stones) in the region goes back around 3,000 years.” — Wikipedia

The top performers act like humans in the Paleolithic. They hammer, hook, and modify their tools of choice. They dig up roots and tubers, smash wood, and expose larvae. They chip splinters from blocks, pulverize quartz inclusions in preparation and presentation acts. Presumably they speculate on mineral traces in the quartz powder.

In analyzing cognitive potential, mass spectrometry showed that technical information had been transmitted across “a hundred generations.”

Primates transfer ancient knowledge from the past into the future.

The New Caledonian crow produces “probing tools with barbs.” It makes “hook lines from the twigs of the candlenut tree …” that can be used multifunctionally.

“Tool use is a goal-directed action using an appropriate means.”

This simple definition is accompanied by highly complex conceptual formations. What seems obvious to laypeople remains controversial among experts. The question of whether tool making and tool use indicate intelligence cannot be answered so easily.

This is what Ludwig Huber explains.

He approvingly cites Malcolm McCullough, who describes a tool as “applied intelligence.” Consequently, it must be clarified whether a twig used for termite fishing meets this condition. In any demanding interpretive framework, the law of effect (after Edward Lee Thorndike) is not sufficient. This results in the distinction “between an intelligent result and an intelligent action.”

From the Announcement

Can rationality and consciousness in a demanding sense be attributed to nonhuman living beings? In this fundamental book, the internationally leading cognitive biologist Ludwig Huber takes stock of the current state of research on animal thinking. Using numerous illustrations created specifically for this book, he vividly explains the most important experiments and observations and conveys what monkeys, dogs, bees, crows, keas, poison dart frogs, turtles, or octopuses can do: use and make tools, communicate, plan, read minds, and much more. A fascinating journey through cognitive research.

But Huber not only wants to show what we know today about the minds of animals and how we discovered it, but also why it matters. Beyond the pure satisfaction of curiosity, he is driven by a moral imperative: “To save them, we must care, and we can only care if we understand them.” The new scientific findings demand a decisive revision of our irrational and ethically questionable attitudes toward animals.