Return to Main Page »

Bios | Starter Resources | Publications: William Fields | Publications: Daniel Povinelli

Daniel Povinelli, Professor and Director of the Cognitive Evolution Group at the Center for Child Studies at hte University of Louisiana at Lafayette, wrote Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee's Theory of how the World Works. Our genetic similarity with chimps may tempt us to say we just have a sort of souped-up version of the basic ape mind, but Povinelli says if you look hard at the experimental cognitive data on humans and chimps, it seems there's really a qualitative, fundamental difference in abstract, symbolic thought between the two species.

William Fields, Director of Bonobo Research at the Great Ape Trust outside Des Moines, Iowa is co-author of Kanzi’s Primal Language. Fields has studied bonobos’ ability to learn language and also refers to some of them as friends. The bonobos and humans at the Great Ape Trust have developed a shared culture, a culture that led Kanzi and his sister Panbanisha to learn to communicate with humans by using a keyboard and symbols called lexigrams.

Bios | Starter Resources | Publications: William Fields | Publications: Daniel Povinelli

Bios | Starter Resources | Publications: William Fields | Publications: Daniel Povinelli

Peer-reviewed Publications: William Fields

• Fields, W.M. (2007) “Ethnographic Kanzi versus empirical Kanzi: on the distinction between 'Home' and 'Laboratory' in the lives of enculturated apes.” Rivista di Analisi del Testo 8.
• Fields, W.M., Segerdahl, P., & Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S. (2007) "The Material Practices of Ape Language." In J. Valsiner & Alberto Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Socio-Cultural Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Savage-Rumbaugh, S. & Fields, W.M. (2006) "Rules and Tools: Beyond Anthropomorphism: A qualitative report on the stone tool manufacture and use by captive bonobos Kanzi and Panbanisha." N. Toth & K. Schick (eds) The Oldowan: Case Studies into the Earliest Stone Age, Bloomington, Indiana: Stone Age Institute Press.
• Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Rumbaugh, D.M. & W.M. Fields. (2006) "Language as a Window on the Cultural Mind." In S. Hurley (Ed.) Rational Animals, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Fields, W.M.,Segerdahl, P., & D.M. Rumbaugh. (2005) "Culture prefigures cognition in Pan/Homo Bonobos." Theoria 20(3).
• Segerdahl, P., Fields ,W.M., & Savage-Rumbaugh,E.S. (2005) Kanzi's Primal Language: The cultural initiation of apes into language. London: Palgrave/Macmillan.
• Rumbaugh, D.M., Fields, W.M. (2005) "Great Apes Living in Decatur, Georgia" In J. Caldecott & L. Miles (Eds.) The Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation. WNEP-WCMC Press.
• Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., Segerdahl, P., Fields, W.M. (2005) "Individual differences in language competencies in apes resulting from unique rearing conditions imposed by different first epistemologies." In L.L. Namy & S.R. Waxman (Eds.) Symbolic Use and Symbolic Representation. NJ: Erlbaum
• Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Fields, W.M., & T. Spircu. (2004). "The Emergence of Knapping and Vocal Expression Embedded in a Pan/Homo Culture." J. of Biology and Philosophy (19).

Bios | Starter Resources | Publications: William Fields | Publications: Daniel Povinelli

Peer-reviewed Publications: Daniel Povinelli

• Povinelli, D.J. (2000). Folk physics for apes: The chimpanzee's theory of how the world works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Reprinted, 2003 with revisions and a new Forward by Nicholas Humphrey]
• Penn, D.C. & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). On the lack of evidence that chimpanzees possess anything remotely resembling a ‘theory of mind.’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 362, 731-744.
• Subiaul, F., Okamoto-Barth, S., Barth, J., & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). Human cognitive specializations. In Todd M. Preuss & Jon H. Kaas (Eds.) Evolution of Nervous Systems: Volume V, The Evolution of Primate Nervous Systems. Pp. 509-528. Elsevier: New York.
• Penn, D. & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). Causal cognition in human and nonhuman animals: A comparative, critical review. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 97-118.
• Povinelli, D.J. & Vonk, J. (2006). We don’t need a microscope to explore the chimpanzee’s mind. In S. Hurley (Ed.), Rational Animals. pp. 385-412. Oxford: Oxford University Press [Reprinted].
• Vonk, J. & Povinelli, D.J. (2006). Similarity and difference in the conceptual systems of primates: The Unobservability hypothesis. In E. Wasserman and T. Zentall (Eds.) Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence. pp. 363-387. Oxford University Press.
• Silk, J.B., Brosnan, S.F., Vonk, J., Henrich, J., Povinelli, D.J., Richardson, A.F., Lambeth, S.P., Mascaro, J., Schapiro, S.J. (2005). Chimpanzees are indifferent to the welfare of other group members. Nature 435: 1357-1359.
• Povinelli, D.J. (2004). Behind the ape’s appearance: Escaping anthropomorhism in the study of other minds. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , Winter, 29-41 [invited article].
• Bering, J.M. & Povinelli, D.J. (2003). Comparing cognitive development. In D. Maestripieri, Ed. pp. 205-233. Primate psychology: Bridging the gap between the mind and behavior of human and nonhuman primates. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Povinelli, D.J. & Vonk, J. (2003). Chimpanzee minds: Suspiciously human? Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 157-160.
• Povinelli, D.J., Bering, J., & Giambrone (2003). Chimpanzee ‘pointing’: Another error of the argument by analogy? In S. Kita (Ed.), pp. 35-68, Pointing: Where language culture and cognition meet. Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Giambrone, S. & Povinelli, D.J. (2002). Consciousness. In Encyclopedia of Evolution (M. Pagel, Ed.), pp. 192-196. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Povinelli, D.J. & Bering, J.M. (2002). The mentality of apes revisited. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 115-119.
• Povinelli, D.J., Dunphy-Lelii, S, Reaux, J.E., & Mazza, M.P. (2002). Psychological diversity in chimpanzees and humans: New longitudinal assessments of chimpanzees’ understanding of attention. Brain, Behavior, and Evolution, 59, 33-53. [Invited article for special symposium issue]
• Povinelli, D.J. (2001). The minds of humans and apes are different outcomes of an evolutionary experiment. In S. Fitzpatrick & J. Bruer (Eds.), Carving our Destiny: Scientific Research Faces a new millennium. Pp. 1-40. National Academy of Sciences and John Henry Press. [Commemorative Essays of the James S. McDonnell Centennial Fellows]
• Povinelli, D.J., Bering, J., & Giambrone, S. (2000). Toward a science of other minds: Escaping the argument by analogy. Cognitive Science, 24, 509-541.
• Povinelli, D.J. (Winter, 1998). Can animals empathize? Scientific American Presents: Exploring Intelligence, 9(4): 67, 72-75.