2020 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Body perception in chimpanzees: from the perspective of comparative cognitive science
| Project/Area Number |
18J21474
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| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
GAO JIE 京都大学, 理学研究科, 特別研究員(DC1)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-25 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | body perception / inversion effect / configural processing / expert effect / body knowledge / comparative cognition / child development / eye-tracking |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I have finished all the data collection. I mainly completed the data collection of the eye tracking experiment to examine chimpanzees' cognition of body parts. I conducted data analyses of all my data and wrote my doctoral thesis. I have passed the defense and received my doctor's degree. I have 2 papers published in this year.
In summary, I studied body perception in chimpanzees in a comparative manner, focusing on their cognition of whole bodies and body parts. By comparing with humans, I found that chimpanzees have similar properties in body perception with humans, albeit less flexible in certain aspects. They also have knowledge about locations and appearances of body parts, as humans do. The results indicates that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans may already have a similar level of body perception in the evolutionary path.
In general, I have reached the goal of my research plan and got amazing results. My research provided important information of how humans’ closest living relatives, chimpanzees, perceive bodies, and provided implications of the evolutionary path of body perception. I hope my study could contribute to our understanding of human cognition and inspire interesting future research to shed light on our understanding of human mind evolution.
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| Research Progress Status |
令和2年度が最終年度であるため、記入しない。
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
令和2年度が最終年度であるため、記入しない。
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