Université de Strasbourg

23rd USIAS Fellows Seminar - The "Theory of Mind" precursors

From May 25, 2016 until March 28, 2024
From 12:00 until 14:00
Salle Table Ronde, MISHA

Hélène Meunier, Fellow 2014, Université de Strasbourg

The « Theory of Mind », the ability to evaluate the mental state of others, the understanding of feelings, perceptions and intentions of someone else, has long been considered a peculiarity of human beings. There is now a substantial evidence for psychological state attribution in chimpanzees and recent systematic studies highlight the interest of enlarging research on cognition evolution to monkey species to be able to draw reliable inferences on the evolutionary dynamics of intelligence.

In her project, Hélène Meunier investigates the preferences of young children and monkeys between prosocial versus antisocial behaviour. The aim is to produce a precious source of information in regards of current hypotheses and still open debates on what makes human cognition so different from that of other species. During the seminar, Hélène Meunier will present the progress of her research.

France 2030