Skip to main content
Kyoto University » Primate Research Institute

Search form

CICASP | Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies in Primatology

  • About CICASP
  • Program
    • Course Details
    • Application
    • FAQ
    • Other Programs
    • Funding
    • Testimonials
    Stay
  • Departments

    Departments and Staff

    • Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB)
    • CICASP
    • Kyoto University Museum
    • The Center for Ecological Research
    • Center for Human Evolution Modeling Research
    • Wildlife Research Center
    Stay
  • CICASP Staff
    • CICASP
    • Administration
    • Students
    • Alumni
    Stay
  • Education

    View: Education

    • Fundamental Lectures
    • Inuyama Nerds
    • Other Educational Events
    • Sci Comm Workshops
    Stay
  • News & Media
    • Announcements
    • Articles
    • Events
    • Interviews
    • Podcasts
    • Publications
    Stay
  • Campus Life
    • Around Inuyama
    • Around Nagoya
    • Festivals
    • On Campus
    Stay
  • Contact
HomeNewsPublications
  • December 21st 2022

    The PrimateCast 76: Dr. Elaine Guevara on Primate Eponyms

    Listen
  • December 9th 2022

    The PrimateCast Origins (75): Professor Mewa Singh on his half-century journey into primatology and wildlife biology

    Listen
  • November 17th 2022

    The PrimateCast (74): Dr. Briana Pobiner on what makes us human, paleontological time machines and bigging up science education

    Listen
  • November 1st 2022

    The PrimateCast Origins (73): Dr. John Mitani on his life among the apes

    Listen
  • October 19th 2022

    The PrimateCast 72: Dr. Charles (Chuck) Snowdon on what music means to us, and monkeys!

    Listen
  • October 12th 2022

    The PrimateCast 71: Dr. Pamela Asquith on language, anthropomorphism, and metaphor in science, and translating Kinji Imanishi and the flow of Japanese primatology

    Listen
  • August 21st 2022

    The PrimateCast #70: Dr. Karen Strier on weaving between theory and practice in behavioral ecology and conservation

    Listen
  • July 27th 2022
    Takeshi Furuichi with local kids at Wamba Village in the DRC

    The PrimateCast #69: Dr. Takeshi Furuichi on bonobos, Wamba Village in the DRC, and building theories of human behavioral evolution

    Listen
  • July 1st 2022
    Dr. Elisabetta Visalberghi on the PrimateCast

    The PrimateCast #68: Dr. Elisabetta Visalberghi on Being a Primate, Becoming a Primatologist

    Listen
  • June 17th 2022
    Susumu Tomiya descends into Natural Trap Cave, Wyoming

    The PrimateCast #67: Dr. Susumu Tomiya on paleontology, the past, present and future of biodiversity, beardogs, and doing and communicating science

    Listen
  • May 8th 2022

    The PrimateCast #66: Dr. Robin Dunbar on how the social brain evolved

    Listen
  • April 22nd 2022

    The PrimateCast #65: Dr. Ikuma Adachi on Comparative Cognition and Managing a Chimpanzee Research Program

    Listen

The PrimateCast

The PrimateCast - Podcast
Catch interviews from the world of primatology, wildlife science and beyond with The PrimateCast. Available here or on iTunes. Subscribe to our rss feed, add us on iTunes and follow us on social media at Facebook and Twitter @ThePrimateCast. View all Podcasts
Subscribe to The PrimateCast
 
 
iTunes Channel
 

Topics

  • Announcements (23)
  • Articles (3)
  • Events (24)
  • Interviews (1)
  • Podcasts (78)
  • Publications (28)

Recent News

International Primatology Lecture 19: Prof. Patrícia Izar
February 10th 2023
Read More >
In Remembrance: Charles T. (Chuck) Snowdon, 1941–2023
February 8th 2023
Read More >
International Primatology Lecture 18: Prof. Frans de Waal
January 12th 2023
Read More >
View all News ›

Monthly Archive

  • February 2023 (2)
  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (2)
  • November 2022 (3)
  • October 2022 (3)
  • August 2022 (3)

Follow Us

  • CICASP on Facebook
  • Follow CICASP on Twitter
  • CICASP on LinkedIn
  • CICASP on YouTube
  • CICASP RSS

The Metaphorical Chimpanzee

October 25th 2013
Publications
Chimpanzees use metaphor

A new study led by CICASP's Dr. Ikuma Adachi shows that the use of metaphorical concepts is not unique to humans.The article was published in the open access journal eLife.

Chimpanzees use metaphors

The ability to connect abstract concepts to something physical helps us to understand abstract ideas. Examples include using conceptual metaphors that draw parallels between something abstract, such as social status, and physical position, even though there is no connection between them, e.g. using phrases such as ‘top dog’ or ‘upper class’. It has long been assumed that the use of such conceptual metaphors is uniquely human.

Many social animals have hierarchies of dominance within groups, with particular individuals being ranked above or below other individuals. Chimpanzees—our closest relatives in the animal kingdom—are a good example of this, and although their cognitive processes are known to be similar to those of humans in many ways, we do not know if they make use of conceptual metaphors. We don’t even know if conceptual metaphors can exist in the absence of language.

When researchers want to investigate how concepts are cognitively linked in the brain, they often use ‘coherent’ or ‘incoherent’ stimuli. A good example of an incoherent stimulus would be the word ‘red’ printed in blue ink. Because our neural representations of the color blue and the word blue are linked, it is harder for a person to read the word red when it is printed in blue than when it is printed in red (which would be a coherent stimulus).

To test whether chimpanzees use a conceptual metaphor in which social status corresponds to height, Christoph Dahl (now at National Taiwan University) and Ikuma Adachi presented photographs to six chimpanzees of four other chimpanzees who were known to them, and tested whether the relative positions of the photographs affected the ability of the chimpanzees to identify which of the two photographs they had been shown earlier. For example, a photograph of a high-ranked, dominant chimpanzee could be shown above a photograph of a lower-ranked chimpanzee (a coherent stimulus) or below a photograph of a lower-ranked chimpanzee (an incoherent stimulus). The chimpanzees doing the tests had to identify which of the photographs they had been shown earlier by touching the correct photograph on a screen.

The results showed that it took longer for chimpanzees to complete the task when the photograph was in the ‘wrong’ position. This suggests that the neural representations of social status and physical position might be linked in chimpanzees. If the social status and the physical position of the photograph match, the chimpanzee doing the test can quickly identify the photograph that it has been shown earlier. However, if they do not match, the conflict between the neural representations of social status and physical position slows down the response. These findings suggest that conceptual metaphors are not uniquely human and, moreover, that they could have emerged before the development of language.

Access the full article at eLife, and listen to Dr. Adachi discuss this work on the eLife podcast.

  • Kyoto University

Navigation

  • About CICASP
  • Program
  • People
  • News & Media
  • Campus Life
  • Contact

Follow Us

  • CICASP on Facebook
  • Follow CICASP on Twitter
  • CICASP on LinkedIn
  • CICASP on YouTube
  • CICASP RSS
^Top

Contact Information

CICASP, 41-2, Kanrin,
Inuyama, Aichi,
484-8506 Japan
Phone: +81 (0)568-63-0284
Fax: +81 (0)568-61-1050
Email: cicasp [at] mail2 [dot] adm [dot] kyoto-u [dot] ac [dot] jp

© 2023 Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies in Primatology, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University