| Abstract: | Argues that psychologists are interested principally in those behaviors that imply some type of functional image or representation of the environment. When man's categories of experience are imposed on the great apes, solid evidence of correspondence between their construction of reality and our own is obtained. Their sensory capacities are similar, and they spontaneously classify their experiences with objects in ways that resemble those of man. These analytic dispositions are complemented by the ability to synthesize heterogeneous attributes as different properties of the same "object." It is clear that the unwelten of ape and man are similar in many respects. Although it is true that the contrast between ape and man seems greatest in the ability for creative reconstruction of experience--to display foresight, to imagine, to plan ahead--even here the differences may be more in degree than in kind. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
