[BERG] Josep Call talk in Edinburgh - 24 Feb

[Hannah Buchanan-Smith]

Tuesday, 24 February

12.30noon – LUNCHTIME TALK

Chrystal MacMillan Building - Seminar Room 2


Josep Call, Max Planck Insitute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

& School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews

http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/staff/call/


"Apes as intuitive statisticians"


Abstract

Numerous animal species are capable of selecting the larger of two quantities even when those are presented concurrently and fall outside either object file or subitizing range.  Much less is known about animals’ ability to spontaneously estimate probabilities, an ability that should be distinguished from sensitivity to reinforcement probabilities.  In this talk I will present data on how great apes estimate probabilities in tasks that require comparing two probabilities and extrapolating from populations to samples to net the highest possible payoff.  These data have implications for several disciplines including comparative cognition, logic, and experimental economics.

Host: Alex Weiss