From time to time, we will take the passenger seat and let someone else do the blogging - it could be a person who works with bonobos, a primatologist, a scientist, someone who raises money to help bonobos or someone who just plain loves bonobos! Today, I’m so pleased to introduce you to James Brooks - a 10 year-old, self-proclaimed bonobo fan. James has read everything there is to read about bonobos and other apes, he has raised over $1000 (with plans to raise much more) for bonobos through Bowl for Apes at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa and the generous donation of his birthday and Christmas gifts, he has spent time with bonobos and traveled the world (well, almost) learning and doing. James is an inspiration to us at Bonobo Kids - his passion and his ‘activities for good’ overwhelm us with gratefulness and hope.

James introduced us to a very cool concept called ‘Theory of Mind’ and, without further ado, I’m going to let him tell you all about it….

“Theory of mind” is a term psychologists use that means being able to guess how another person is thinking. Humans develop this ability around the age of two to three and people used to think it was uniquely human. But many studies of other apes show they can have a theory of mind too.

The best experiment with kids for “theory of mind” goes like this: You hide an object like a chocolate bar with two kids in the room and both of them can see that it is being hidden in place 1. Then you take one of the children out of the room and leave one in and move the chocolate bar to a different hiding spot. Then ask the child who saw it moved “where do you think the other child will look for it?”. Children without a theory of mind will say place 2 where the chocolate bar actually is. Children with a theory of mind will say that the child who left the room would look where he/she thought it was which is place 1. Sometimes they do this experiment with the children pointing because sometimes 2 years olds don’t always speak that well.

Non-human apes have proven in lots of experiments that they can have a “theory of mind”. Here is a story about the bonobo, Kanzi and his sister Panbanisha at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa:

One day Kanzi and Panbanisha were each trying to make tools to open a box of food. Kanzi was able to do it but Panbanisha couldn’t make a sharp enough stone. Kanzi tried to help Panbanisha but the scientists would not allow him to so they decided to take Kanzi away. Kanzi hid a stone that he had used where Panbanisha could easily find it and use it. This shows that he is considerate and could think from Panbanisha’s pont of view. He knew what she needed and tried to help her.

Thanks again, James for this awesome information and story…everyone go visit James’ Ape Aware site and blog.

Help Spread the Word!!!

Powered by Bookmarkify™