Human brains better tooled up than monkeys
|
Human brains light up when they see tools being used – but the sight fails to impress the brains of macaque monkey, our fellow primates, in the same way. |
| In people, a particular brain region responds to tool use |
Monkeys, by contrast, can be taught to use a tool to obtain a reward, but have little or no insight into the underlying concepts and forces that make it work. |
| Orban and his colleagues think that the region may be specific to understanding cause and effect in tools alone: other brain regions have been seen to be active in more general studies of “cause and effect” |
| This region is implicated in understanding the action possibilities that a tool affords, which could be a critical component in the kind of flexible and creative tool use characteristic of humans |
| Further brain changes were probably necessary in the prefrontal cortex – the thinking and reasoning part of the brain – before our ancestors could envisage and plan complex toolsRead more at www.newscientist.com |
|
)
To leave a comment:
2 Comments 1 Recommend
3 Responses
Very interesting that the use of tools is instinctually programmed to be rewarding. I think AI will need to be goverened by a basic set of intinct guidelines to be humanlike though, say least in it’s lower levels of ‘thought’
5 months agoThe point is how many of these instincts have to be encoded and how many can be learned or developed by a more compact algorithm, and which option takes less time and effort. Sometim... more
Thanks!
The point is how many of these instincts have to be encoded and how many can be learned or developed by a more compact algorithm, and which option takes less time and effort. Sometimes hard-coding is easier than predicting the consequences of a set of variables, sometimes the code that should be generated is too big and repetitive and some variables are helpful. The former requires a greater knowledge of how the brain works, the latter requires unveiling the principles that rule intelligence, (not restricted to human intelligence).
A hard and fascinating task in any case.
5 months ago