Speaker: Josep Call

Title: What can AI learn from Learning, Reasoning and Social Interactions in Non-human Primates?

Abstract: Broadly speaking, learning and reasoning are the two main forms of animal adaptation that have been postulated to explain the emergence and acquisition of novel responses in problem solving situations. Social interaction is considered one of the most challenging forms of problem solving due to the reactive nature of partners and their memory of past interactions. In this talk I will focus on some of the aspects of the psychology of social interaction. I will use three areas (morality, communication and decision making) to present the kind of social knowledge that the great apes possess and the social inferences (mental leaps in novel situations) that they make during social interactions. I will argue that social inference is an essential component (but not the only one) underlying the rich interaction of nonhuman primates

Bio: Josep Call is a comparative psychologist specializing in primate cognition, Wardlaw Professor in the Evolutionary Origins of Mind at the University of St Andrews and Director of the Budongo Research Unit at Edinburgh Zoo. His research focuses on elucidating the cognitive processes underlying technical and social problem solving in primates and other animals with the ultimate goal of reconstructing the evolution of human and nonhuman cognition. He has published five books and more than 300 articles and book chapters on the behaviour and cognition of the great apes and other animals. He has been elected fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Cognitive Science Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy.