In a study published in Science, Premack and Woodruff asked: "To what extent does the chimpanzee comprehend the elements of a problem situation and potential solutions?" An adult chimpanzee (Sarah) was shown 30-second videotapes of a human actor struggling with one of several problems (for example, not able to reach bananas hanging from the ceiling, a record player not playing). Then Sarah was shown two photographs, one that depicted a solution to the problem (like stepping onto a box, plugging in the record player) and one that did not. She was then instructed to pick one of the photos and place it under the television monitor. (Sarah had been raised in captivity since age one and had extensive prior exposure to photographs and television.) The order in which the scenes were presented to Sarah was randomized, as was the left/right position of the photos presented to her. Sarah was shown eight different scenarios. For each scenario, researchers recorded whether Sarah selected the correct (solution) photo or not. It turned out that Sarah identified the correct photo for 7 of the 8 scenarios. 2.a) In what proportion of the scenarios did Sarah choose correctly? Skeptics believe that the results happened by chance and that even a fair coin can come up 7 heads in 8 tosses of the fair coin ... that Sarah is just guessing and the observed results are explained by chance ... the researchers, however, believe the evidence is strong in support of the conjecture that Sarah has the ability to select the correct solution/photo more often than not. ...
In a study published in Science, Premack and Woodruff asked: "To what extent does the chimpanzee comprehend the elements of a problem situation and potential solutions?" An adult chimpanzee (Sarah) was shown 30-second videotapes of a human actor struggling with one of several problems (for example, not able to reach bananas hanging from the ceiling, a record player not playing). Then Sarah was shown two photographs, one that depicted a solution to the problem (like stepping onto a box, plugging in the record player) and one that did not. She was then instructed to pick one of the photos and place it under the television monitor. (Sarah had been raised in captivity since age one and had extensive prior exposure to photographs and television.) The order in which the scenes were presented to Sarah was randomized, as was the left/right position of the photos presented to her. Sarah was shown eight different scenarios. For each scenario, researchers recorded whether Sarah selected the correct (solution) photo or not. It turned out that Sarah identified the correct photo for 7 of the 8 scenarios.
2.a) In what proportion of the scenarios did Sarah choose correctly?
Skeptics believe that the results happened by chance and that even a fair coin can come up 7 heads in 8 tosses of the fair coin ... that Sarah is just guessing and the observed results are explained by chance ... the researchers, however, believe the evidence is strong in support of the conjecture that Sarah has the ability to select the correct solution/photo more often than not. ...
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