From sign to action: Studies in chimpanzee pictorial competence
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Alenka Hribar
Alenka Hribar (b. 1981) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 〈hribar@eva.mpg.de〉. Her research interest is analogical reasoning in great apes and children. Her publications include “Great apes use landmark cues over spatial relations to find hidden food” (with J. Call, 2011); “Children's reasoning about spatial relational similarity: The effect of alignment and relational complexity” (with D. Haun & J. Call, 2011); “Understanding the functional properties of tools: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella ) attend to tool features differently” (with G. Sabbatini et al., 2012).Göran Sonesson (b. 1951) is a professor at Lund University 〈goran.sonesson@semiotik.lu.se〉. His research interests include visual semiotics, cultural semiotics, evolution and development of semiosis, and epistemology of semiotics. His publications include “The view from Husserl's lectern: Considerations on the role of phenomenology in cognitive semiotics” (2009; “New considerations on the proper study of man – and, marginally, some other animals” (2009); “Semiosis and the elusive final interpretant of understanding” (2010); and “Semiotics inside-out and/or outside-in: How to understand everything and (with luck) influence people” (2012).
and
Josep Call
Josep Call (b. 1966) is a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 〈call@eva.mpg.de〉. His research interests include primate cognition, animal cognition, and cognitive evolution. His publications include “Apes save tools for future use” (with N. Mulcahy, 2006); “Chimpanzees are rational maximizers in an ultimatum game” (with K. Jensen & M. Tomasello, 2007); “Monkeys like mimics esis” (with M. Carpenter, 2009); and “Methodological challenges in the study of primate cognition” (with M. Tomasello, 2011).
Abstract
Many studies of children and apes realized in psychology address issues that are highly relevant to semiotics, but they often do so indirectly, or they use a terminology that is confusing and/or too vague from a semiotical point of view. The studies reported here, however, follow the paradigm of these psychological studies, but they are couched in an explicit semiotical terminology. They involve three classical semiotical issues: the nature of the sign, as opposed to other meanings; degrees and/or types of iconicity and their relevance for understanding; and the importance of temporal focus in different kinds of semiotical resources. The studies all involve one subject, the chimpanzee Alex, and all issues were studied looking at the actions accomplished by the subject after being exposed to different semiotic resources.
About the authors
Alenka Hribar (b. 1981) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 〈hribar@eva.mpg.de〉. Her research interest is analogical reasoning in great apes and children. Her publications include “Great apes use landmark cues over spatial relations to find hidden food” (with J. Call, 2011); “Children's reasoning about spatial relational similarity: The effect of alignment and relational complexity” (with D. Haun & J. Call, 2011); “Understanding the functional properties of tools: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) attend to tool features differently” (with G. Sabbatini et al., 2012).
Göran Sonesson (b. 1951) is a professor at Lund University 〈goran.sonesson@semiotik.lu.se〉. His research interests include visual semiotics, cultural semiotics, evolution and development of semiosis, and epistemology of semiotics. His publications include “The view from Husserl's lectern: Considerations on the role of phenomenology in cognitive semiotics” (2009; “New considerations on the proper study of man – and, marginally, some other animals” (2009); “Semiosis and the elusive final interpretant of understanding” (2010); and “Semiotics inside-out and/or outside-in: How to understand everything and (with luck) influence people” (2012).
Josep Call (b. 1966) is a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 〈call@eva.mpg.de〉. His research interests include primate cognition, animal cognition, and cognitive evolution. His publications include “Apes save tools for future use” (with N. Mulcahy, 2006); “Chimpanzees are rational maximizers in an ultimatum game” (with K. Jensen & M. Tomasello, 2007); “Monkeys like mimics esis” (with M. Carpenter, 2009); and “Methodological challenges in the study of primate cognition” (with M. Tomasello, 2011).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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- Dimensions of zoosemiotics: Introduction
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- Zoosemiotics is the study of animal forms of knowing
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- On zoosemiotics and bridging the value gap
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- Training guide dogs of the blind with the “phantom man” method: Historic background and semiotic footing
- From sign to action: Studies in chimpanzee pictorial competence
- Patterns and dynamics of (bird) soundscapes: A biosemiotic interpretation
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- Culture, power, dictionaries: What lexicography reveals about cultural objects
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- La mémoire et l'événement: Les autobiographies intellectuelles au Brésil
- Human voice: Its meaning and textuality outside the verbal and the musical
- Des parcours interprétatifs à la réception des textes médiévaux
- Semiotic of pretext, semiotics of pre-text
- From text to culture through corpus: Interactivity as an argumentative keyword of contemporary cyberculture
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Articles in the same Issue
- Dimensions of zoosemiotics
- Frontmatter
- Dimensions of zoosemiotics: Introduction
- The semiome: From genetic to semiotic scaffolding
- Codes and coding: Sebeok's zoosemiotics and the dismantling of the fixed-code fallacy
- Zoosemiotics is the study of animal forms of knowing
- Zoo-aesthetics: A natural step after Darwin
- Curs, crabs, and cranky cows: Ethological and linguistic aspects of animal-based insults
- On zoosemiotics and bridging the value gap
- Umwelt or Umwelten? How should shared representation be understood given such diversity?
- Umwelt trajectories
- Training guide dogs of the blind with the “phantom man” method: Historic background and semiotic footing
- From sign to action: Studies in chimpanzee pictorial competence
- Patterns and dynamics of (bird) soundscapes: A biosemiotic interpretation
- Observation ↔ Text/e ↔ Culture
- Introduction
- Culture, power, dictionaries: What lexicography reveals about cultural objects
- La culture comme objet
- La mémoire et l'événement: Les autobiographies intellectuelles au Brésil
- Human voice: Its meaning and textuality outside the verbal and the musical
- Des parcours interprétatifs à la réception des textes médiévaux
- Semiotic of pretext, semiotics of pre-text
- From text to culture through corpus: Interactivity as an argumentative keyword of contemporary cyberculture
- Le texte comme fragment culturel: Trois scénarios d'observation
