Publications [#323263] of Michael Tomasello

Journal Articles

1. Karg, K; Schmelz, M; Call, J; Tomasello, M, The goggles experiment: Can chimpanzees use self-experience to infer what a competitor can see?, Animal Behaviour, vol. 105 (July, 2015), pp. 211-221, Elsevier BV [doi]
   (last updated on 2025/06/15)

   Abstract:
   In two experiments, we investigated whether chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, can use self-experience to infer what another sees. Subjects first gained self-experience with the visual properties of an object (either opaque or see-through). In a subsequent test phase, a human experimenter interacted with the object and we tested whether chimpanzees understood that the experimenter experienced the object as opaque or as see-through. Crucially, in the test phase, the object seemed opaque to the subject in all cases (while the experimenter could see through the one that they had experienced as see-through before), such that she had to use her previous self-experience with the object to correctly infer whether the experimenter could or could not see when looking at the object. Chimpanzees did not attribute their previous self-experience with the object to the experimenter in a gaze-following task (experiment 1); however, they did so successfully in a competitive context (experiment 2). We conclude that chimpanzees successfully used their self-experience to infer what the competitor sees. We discuss our results in relation to the well-known 'goggles experiment' and address alternative explanations.