My primary interests are in characterizing the evolution of higher-order cognitive functions in the great ape/human clade (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans). Primarily, our research programs include comparisons of the psychological development of human children and captive chimpanzees.

Our long-term projects have focused on three areas: (1) whether chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates reason about unobservable mental states of others (such as perceptions, desires, and beliefs). (2) whether these species reason about unobservable aspects of physical interactions (such as gravity, force, mass, physical connection, strength. etc.), and (3) the nature of the self-concept in the great apes. Each of these programs involves systematic comparisons with human children between the ages of 18 months and about 5 years. Much of our current research has attempted to test our theories which relate the evidence of an elaborated system of kinesthetic self-representation in the great apes (as expressed through their capacity for mirror self-recognition, elaborated patterns of tool-making and use, and more robust forms of imitation), to ecological aspects of the ancestor of this taxonomic group. Based upon morphological evidence, orangutans appear to be the closest approximation of the common ancestor, and thus have served as a focal point for testing certain aspects of these theories.

Graduate students in recent years have primarily worked with our population of captive chimpanzees on projects relating to their understanding of the underlying principles of how simple tools work, their ability to reason about what others can and cannot see, their ability to related their own sensory experiences when interacting with objects to abstract physical properties of those objects (such as weight), and their ability to pre-plan sequential motor actions. Long-term financial support for our laboratories provides resources for student projects.

Selected Publications (2003-2007):

• Penn, D.C., Holyoak, K.J., & Povinelli, D.J. (in press). The relational reinterpretation hypothesis: explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. [target article]
• Vonk, J, Brosnan, S.F, Silk, J.B., Henrich, J. Shapiro, S., Richardson, A., Lambeth, S.P., & Povinelli, D.J. (in press). Chimpanzees do not take advantage of very low cost opportunities to deliver food to unrelated group members. Animal Behaviour.
• Moore, C. & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). Differences in how 12- and 24-month-olds interpret the gaze of adults. Infancy, 11, 215-231.
• Moore, C., Mealiea, J., Garon, N., & Povinelli, D. J. (2007). The development of the bodily self. Infancy, 11, 157-174.
• Penn, D.C. & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). On the lack of evidence that chimpanzees possess anything remotely resembling a ‘theory of mind.’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 362, 731-744.
• Subiaul, F., Okamoto-Barth, S., Barth, J., & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). Human cognitive specializations. In Todd M. Preuss & Jon H. Kaas (Eds.) Evolution of Nervous Systems: Volume V, The Evolution of Primate Nervous Systems. Pp. 509-528. Elsevier: New York.
• Penn, D. & Povinelli, D.J. (2007). Causal cognition in human and nonhuman animals: A comparative, critical review. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 97-118.
• Vonk, J. & Povinelli, D.J. (2006). Similarity and difference in the conceptual systems of primates: The unobservability hypothesis. In E. Wasserman and T. Zentall (Eds.) Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence. pp. 363-387. Oxford University Press.
• Silk, J.B., Brosnan, S.F., Vonk, J., Henrich, J., Povinelli, D.J., Richardson, A.F., Lambeth, S.P., Mascaro, J., Schapiro, S.J. (2005). Chimpanzees are indifferent to the welfare of other group members. Nature, 435, 1357-1359.
• Povinelli, D.J. & Prince, C.G. (2005). Parental-offspring conflict and the development of social understanding. In P. Carruthers (Ed.) Innateness and the Structure of the Mind. pp. 239-253. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Barth, J., Reaux, J. E., & Povinelli, D. J. (2005). Chimpanzees’ (Pan troglodytes) use of gaze cues in object-choice tasks: Different methods yield different results. Animal Cognition, 8, 84–92.
• Povinelli, D.J. (2004). Behind the ape’s appearance: Escaping anthropomorhism in the study of other minds. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , Winter, 29-41.
• Povinelli, D.J. & Vonk, J. (2004). We don’t need a microscope to explore the chimpanzee’s mind. Mind and Language, 19, 1-28.
• Bering, J.M. & Povinelli, D.J. (2003). Comparing cognitive development. In D. Maestripieri, Ed.Primate psychology: Bridging the gap between the mind and behavior of human and nonhuman primates. pp. 205-233. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Povinelli, D.J., Theall, L.A., Reaux, J.E., & Dunphy-Lelii, S. (2003). Chimpanzees spontaneously modify the direction of their gestural signals to match the attentional orientation of others. Animal Behaviour, 65, 71-79.

Phone: (337) 482-0265
e-mail: povinelli@louisiana.edu

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