Members in the Media
From: The Wall Street Journal

Do Baboons Monkey With Metaphors?

The Wall Street Journal:

Monkeys can reason by using analogy, it seems. In an experiment recently reported in the journal Psychological Science, baboons in a lab proved capable of realizing that a pair of oval shapes is “like” a pair of square shapes and “unlike” a pair made of two different shapes. This finding suggests that you can have analogy without language.

The experiment, run on 29 baboons by Joel Fagot of the University of Provence and Roger Thompson of Marshall College, found that the monkeys could ignore the fact that some symbols were more familiar from previous sessions and stick with the task of selecting those that came in pairs, and that they still partly recalled the skill after a year.

Read the full story: The Wall Street Journal

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.