Methodological-conceptual problems in the study of chimpanzees' folk physics: How studies with adult humans can help

Abstract

In three experiments, we examined humans' folk physics (i.e., a naturally occurring and spontaneous understanding of the physical world), using variations of problems used to study chimpanzees' folk physics. Presented with trap-tube problems in two experiments, adult humans showed an unnecessary bias to insert a stick into the end of the tube farthest from the reward to push it out the other end. When presented with trap-table problems with ineffective trapping holes, people unnecessarily avoided the side with the hole. The similarity of humans' and chimpanzees' behavior on these tasks highlights methodological and conceptual problems in studies of chimpanzees' folk physics and suggests alternative explanations for their behavior. Copyright 2005 Psychonomic Society, Inc.