A Formal Notation to Aid Analysis of Complex Behaviour: Understanding the Tactical

Deception of Primates
Author(s): R. W. Byrne
Source: Behaviour, Vol. 127, No. 3/4 (Dec., 1993), pp. 231-246
Published by: BRILL
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4535153 .
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 127 (3-4) 1993, © E. J. Brill, Leiden
Behaviour

A FORMAL NOTATION TO AID ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX

BEHAVIOUR: UNDERSTANDING THE TACTICAL
DECEPTION OF PRIMATES

by

R. W. BYRNE1)
(Scottish Primate Research Group, University of St Andrews, School of Psychology, St
Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, Scotland, e-mail rwbst-andrews.ac.uk)

(Acc. 1ll-X-1993)

Summary
A formal notation is argued to be useful in representing theories of complex animal
behaviour. This "production system" approach, originally derived from artificial intel-
ligence, is explained with a series of examples of tactical deception in primates. These
examples are controversial, since they might suggest intentionality and thinking in non-
humans, and their interpretation is not straightforward. The ease of representing compet-
ing explanations of sophisticated behaviour (for instance those used in behaviourist psy-
chology, animal ethology, and cognitive science) in the single formalism of production
systems, may eventually aid a rapprochement between disciplines with interests in the
evolution of intelligence.

Introduction
Recent analyses of the complex behaviour of animals have often argued
for a cognitive perspective (see papers in HULSE et al., 1978; ROITBLAT,
1987; papers in RISTAU,1991). This new approach often means that the
use of mentalistic terms becomes allowable (GRIFFIN,1991), and it is
typically opposed to the more traditional behaviourist approach. How-
ever, behaviourism has changed in many ways since the formulations of
HULLand TOLMAN, and it is no longer clear that cognitivism and behav-
iourism really constitute testably different alternatives (see DICKINSON,
1980; SKINNER,1981). Researchers may prefer behaviourist accounts of
simple-looking behaviour and mentalist accounts of complex-looking

1) This paper derives originally from a plenary lecture given at the 22nd International
Ethological Conference, Kyoto, 1991. The helpful comments of Robin DUNBAR,Hans KUM-
MER, Peter SLATER,Hannah BUCHANAN-SMITH, Andrew WHITENand members of the St
Andrews Behaviour Discussion Group are gratefully acknowledged.

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232 BYRNE

behaviour, but these preferences are largely a matter of taste or fashion,

and so lead to vehement arguments when either type of account is
extended to cover all cases. For instance, confronted with puzzling evi-
dence of deception by primates, adherents of both schools seem equally
convinced of the explanatory power and superiority of their approaches
(compare comments of CHEVALIER-SKOLNIKOFF,DUNBAR, MCGREW,
REYNOLDS, QUIATT, SCHULTZ& LAFRENIERE,SMITH;with those of BALD-
WIN and RACHLIN;all Peer Commentaries to WHITEN & BYRNE,1988).
These "alternative" accounts, if they seem equally good to their adher-
ents and equally flawed by their opponents, might perhaps be more
usefully regarded as equivalent descriptions of behaviour, each of which
could in principle be translated into the other, rather as the wave and
particle descriptions of matter are each useful in different contexts within
physics.
How then should we make progress in the animal field? Certainly not
by attacks on cognitive or behaviourist approaches, since both have
merits. Instead, I believe that it will be more effective for each to develop
in parallel, finding points of contact wherever possible, allowing the
scientific community to adopt one or other-or perhaps both-descrip-
tions according to which is found most useful. It is in this spirit that the
current paper is offered: while entirely cognitive in approach, it should
not be taken as any kind of evidence or argument against a behaviourist
alternative;indeed, in a number of places the mapping between the two is
close.
To understand properly the more complex manifestations of animal
behaviour, what is needed is a clear exposition of theories, allowing
substantive differences between alternative accounts to be pin-pointed
and tested empirically. I suggest that we can profit in this exercise from
making use of a computational formalism that has proved productive in
the simulation of human behaviour, and I illustrate below how the
formalism can be helpful in the vexed case of observational records of
primate tactical deception (see KUMMERet al., 1990, for particular diffi-
culties with this concept).
Taking a cognitive approach, my working assumption will be that we
can regard animals' behaviour as controlled by mental representations.
Cognition is not easily defined or categorized (see YOERG& KAMIL,1991),
but central to it is the use of mental representations as intervening

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 233

explanatory variables. The formalism or language used to code these

mental representations is more than a detail: choice of a convenient and
readily understandable notation has considerable implications for what
will be achieved - in this case, how economical and predictive our
descriptions of the mental representations of animals can be. The com-
putational language which I explore in this paper is called "production
systems". This approach to programming was first developed during the
1950s by psychologists at Carnegie-Mellon University as a means of
simulating problem solving (NEWELL et al., 1958).

Production systems

Production systems are composed of elements that are conventionally

written:

(pattern) (procedure)

This is called a "production". The idea is that when the patternmatches

objects perceived in the world - and so encoded in the system's working
memory - then that particular procedureis executed. The system's long-
term memory consists of a whole set of productions (a production "sys-
tem"), and productions are triggered automatically by pattern-matching
with the contents of working memory.
An advantage of this notation is that it can readily be compared with
the traditional explanations used by behaviourists and ethologists. In
behaviourist theory, variations in an organism's behaviour (R) are subject
to selection by the differential values to the organism of their conse-
quences (ie reinforcement), and because these consequences vary with
differing environmental conditions (S), the organisms' actions become
channelled according to the circumstances. Using production notation,
we can describe this as establishment of the linkages (Si -4 Ri). In
ethological terms, organisms react to distinctive features of displays (sign
stimuli, TINBERGEN, 1959) with behaviour that is organized in highly
functional sequences (fixed action patterns, LORENZ, 1932). Using pro-
duction notation, we can say that the linkage (sign stimulus -> fixed
action pattern) is exhibited. However, both stimulus-response psychology
and the ethological concepts of sign stimulus and fixed action pattern are

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234 BYRNE

restricted to linking a unitary perceived stimulus to a unitary behavioural

response. In a production, the pattern and procedure can be arbitrarily
complex entities, linking compound logical expressions to flexible, hier-
archical programs of action.
To be fully adequate, a formalism for animal behaviour should also be
extensible to human behaviour. There would be little parsimony in
erecting a cognitive explanation of animal behaviour that could not also
apply to human activity. Indeed, the whole point of "cognitive ethology"
is surely to allow artificial barriers between species to be overcome, and
thus discover real differences and continuities in aptitudes. The fact that
production systems have already been used successfully to simulate
human skills are a guarantee of this potential for comparing animal and
human behaviour.

Tactical deception
To illustrate the use of production notation in the analysis of animal
behaviour, this paper will consider several cases of apparently complex
behaviour lumped together under the heading "tactical deception"
(BYRNE & WHITEN, 1985; WHITEN & BYRNE, 1988).
"Deception" occurs when an animal is caused by another to believe
something that is not true, but we can only infer what it believes from its
behaviour. If the animal is an adult human, then it usually intends its
deception, but for other animals this cannot be assumed. Even with
apparently goal-directed behaviour, intentional deception must be distin-
guished from behaviour that simply functions by deception. Tacticaldecep-
tion is therefore defined functionally, as "acts from the normal repertoire
of the agent, deployed such that another individual is likely to misin-
terpret what the acts signify, to the advantage of the agent" (BYRNE &
WHITEN, 1985, 1988). All the records of tactical deception considered in
this paper are given in their full original form in BYRNE & WHITEN, 1990.
This classified corpus of records gives each record a number, and the
numbers are quoted at first mention of each record in the current paper.
Tactical deception includes several points of difficulty and ambiguity of
interpretation: whether the tactic was learnt or planned, whether it was
used intentionally or without understanding, and so on. Thus using data
of this kind should be a strong test of the usefulness of productions in
formulating and testing theories.

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 235

Using productions to express behavioural explanations

Consider how the production system formalism could be used with an

actual case of tactical deception in chacma baboons Papio ursinus(No.67,
observed by R. W. BYRNE, classified as "distraction by looking"). An
adolescent male baboon caused a young juvenile to scream, perhaps by
overly rough play-fighting. In response to its screams, the leading male
and several other adults (presumably including the mother) ran into view
and chased the adolescent, giving aggressive calls. However, instead of
running off, the adolescent stood on his hind legs and stared across a
valley at the opposite hillside, hundreds of metres away. The response was
as if he had just seen a predator or another baboon troop; in this
population, groups are male-led and react to sightings of other troops
with dramatic displays and herding of females (BYRNE et al., 1987). The
pursuers immediately stopped and also scanned out over the hillside.
There was in fact nothing alarming in sight. Pursuit was not resumed.
In accounting for this tactic of escape, the principle followed here is to
try to explain the action by postulating the absolute minimum of theoreti-
cal apparatus, following "Lloyd MORGAN'Scanon". Using production
notation, one might initially hypothesize that the brain representation
controlling the adolescent's behaviour was as simple as:

(aggressive pursuit) -+ (stare into distance)

However, an animal equipped only with this rule would "stare into the
distance" even if the landscape were so bare and simple in form that a
moment's scrutiny would reveal that there was obviously nothing to be
seen. Any such behaviour would be absurd and striking, yet nothing of the
kind was observed. On this and other instances of the same tactic, the
baboons stared at cluttered, rock and tussock hillsides on which a preda-
tor or group of baboons could easily have been hidden. In fact, it took the
human observer some minutes with powerful binoculars to be sure there
was no real cause for alarm. The full corpus of records of tactical
deception shows that just such absurd-seeming behaviour does sometimes
occur in other species, for instance in laboratory-housed tamarins. G.
EPPLE has described a tactic used effectively by one tamarin Saguinus
fuscicollis to escape aggression (No. 14, classified as "distraction by looking
and by calling"). The monkey simply stared intently at an obviously blank

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236 BYRNE

wall a few feet away and gave mobbing vocalizations. Such behaviour has
not been described in chacma baboons, and in the specific population
discussed here the tactic was only used in circumstances when it was quite
plausible that a real danger might have been spotted. At the very least,
theirtactic must have been:

(aggressive pursuit)
& (stare into distance)
(distance not empty)

("Distance not empty" is intended as a shorthand to suggest the sort of

cluttered landscapes described above.) However, this stimulus pattern
was quite common, and yet the behavioural tactic was rare. It seems,
then, that the baboon did not use it every time he could have done. Thus
it is likely that the best account is:

(aggressive pursuit)
&
(distance not empty) (stare into distance)
&
(tactic not used recently)

The complexity of this expression reflects the greater "intelligence" that

most people attribute to behaviour of this kind, but it shows equally that
no mystique is required. As long as baboons can detect the difference
between blank and complex visual fields, and remember their past behav-
iour, they should be able to learn such things. This cognitive account
therefore maps closely onto a behaviourist one (although behaviourists
would never mention a mental representation); indeed, HEYES' (1993)
speculations as to the likely ontogeny of a distraction tactic by a primate
are not materially different. A mentalistic account would instead propose
that the adolescent baboon understood that, if it acted in a certain way,
pursuers could be led to believe in the existence of some danger. Lay-
people evidently do attribute such mental processes to animals on equiva-
lent evidence, but in this case such an account violates normal scientific
parsimony.

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 237

Use of production notation is not restricted to this particular class of

deception. Consider an example of the response to a different problem by
a chacma baboon of the same population (No.104, observed by R. W.
BYRNE, classified as "using social tool (tool deceived)". This time a young

juvenile was confronted by an adult female in possession of a coveted food

item; she was of lower rank than his own mother. The juvenile's mother
was not herself in sight. He screamed as if hurt, so that his mother ran to
the scene and chased the other female away, with the result that the
juvenile got the food. Different researchers saw him use this tactic more
than once. The simplest rule governing his behaviour would be:

(need to remove A) + (scream)

However, this is inadequate. The researchers never saw, in hundreds of

hours of observation, the overgeneralization this rule predicts - screaming
when the mother could see that her juvenile had not been attacked. The
rule must be at least as complex as:

(need to remove A)
& (scream)
(mother out of sight)

But this rule is still insufficient: the tactic was never used against targets of
higher rank than the potential rescuer, so the rule must also include
comparison of their relative ranks:

(need to remove A)
&
(mother dominant-to A) (scream)
&
(mother out of sight)

The juvenile used the tactic at least three times in three weeks, twice on
his mother: apparently he had no tendency to avoid repeated re-use on
the same animal (Nos. 103, 104, 105). Evidently, this would effect the
long-term stability of the deceptive behaviour since it would increase

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238 BYRNE

likelihood of habituation to the tactic, as in the famous story of the boy

who cried "Wolfl".
The stimuluscomplexity(that is, the pattern side of a production) which
animals are capable of using in their social manipulations points to how
they represent the world in their brains. Evidence from the careful
interpretation of observations of this kind is quite independent from that
evidence we gain from the results of experiments. Comparing the two
gives a powerful method of attacking the important question of how
animals represent reality.
Could any species of animal learn the distinctions embodied in the two
production rules that describe these baboons' tactics? An animal could
only do so if it represented other individuals in its memory in terms of
relative rank, and whether in or out of sight, and have some access to
memory of its own recent history. Baboons are Old World monkeys
closely related to vervets Cercopithecusaethiops, and from them we have
independent confirmation from experiments that certain monkeys, as
well as humans, do "see the world" (CHENEY & SEYFARTH, 1990) in these
ways. But these particular perceptual and memory abilities may be fea-
tures of anthropoid primates and not most animals, since at present there
is a distinct lack of evidence of these kinds of brain representation in other
species. Such differences aside, the representation acquired by the
baboon could have been assembled by trial-and-error learning, and so
once again the cognitive account can be mapped onto a behaviourist one.
Given this, it would again be unwarranted to accept a mentalistic
account, in which the young baboon understood that his mother would
think he had been attacked by the other female.
For other records of tactical deception, a production system analysis
shows just how little need be learnt to account for an apparently subtle
action. For example, a chimpanzee Pan troglodytes was observed to affect a
"fake limp", but only in the presence of a dominant who had actually
hurt him some while ago (No.238, observed by F. DE WAAL, classified as
"creating neutral image"; DE WAAL, 1982). Apparently limping inhibits
further aggression. The simplest representation would be:

(threatened) -+ (limp)
However, no chimpanzee would need to use such a tactic to deter threats
from subordinates. This can be taken into account by modifying the
production:

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 239

(threatened by A)
& (limp)
(A dominant-to self)

However, the chimpanzee only used the tactic in the presence of one
particular individual, the former aggressor:

(threatened by A)
&
(A dominant-to self) (limp)
&
(A injured self recently)

This production is now sufficient to account for the observed behaviour

without postulating a mental representation that could not be learnt by
any animal that normally represents individuals in terms of relative rank,
and has some memory of its recent history.
In all three of these cases, primates exhibited behaviour which in
humans would tend to imply an understanding of the knowledge and
intentions of others and deliberate planning of social tactics. Mentalistic
accounts are certainly possible, but using production system notation has
shown that the observed tactics can be accounted for more simply as the
result of rules operating on knowledge that anthropoid primates also
demonstrate in other circumstances. Of course, this argument could have
been made in other ways, but in general the use of a formal notation
should help to clarify and make explicit points which written English
leaves vague. Radical behaviourism's taboo against mental representa-
tions, in particular, impedes ready comparison of alternative possible
causes of behaviour.

Using productions to explore intentionality

Given the known power of selective reinforcement to create intelligent-

seeming behaviour without requiring understanding or intention in the
animals, learning must be the null hypothesis in accounting for observa-
tions of tactical deception and similarly "intelligent-looking" behaviours.
That is, it must be assumed that the behaviour was originally performed
by lucky chance at a fortuitous time; because this past coincidence led to

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240 BYRNE

reward, the behaviour was "reinforced"; this selectively made it more

likely to occur again under those same circumstances, and thus it was
observed and reported. The specific pairing of circumstances with behav-
iour is what we have described with a production. In cases discussed so
far, there is no reason to reject this null hypothesis; the only proviso is
that the species must necessarily represent the world in as rich a fashion in
its brain as does the pattern side of the simplest production that can
account for the observation.
However, certain primate records of tactical deception strongly suggest
that some primates are aware of the intentional states of other individ-
uals, as well as their positions, dispositions, and histories (BYRNE &
WHITEN, 1991, 1992). These records concern great apes rather than any
other primates, and it may be that awareness of intentional states is
impossible for monkeys and other animals (e.g. see POVINELLI et al., 1992a,
b). Using production notation can again help to make the issues clearer.
For example, certain chimpanzees are evidently able to inhibit their
actions and intention movements in order not to give away the position of
a coveted food to a dominant animal. The deceiver instead sits quietly or
grooms itself until the other has gone, and only then takes the food
(GOODALL, 1986). This can be analysed as the product of two production
rules, neither involving attribution of intention:

1 (notice food) + take food)

2 (notice food)
&
(A present) (self-groom)
&
(A dominant-to self)

This simple production "system" now requires an interpretation rule to

prevent both the productions being executed at once, when both food and
a dominant animal are noticed simultaneously, with resulting behav-
ioural conflict. When production systems are used in artificial intel-
ligence, the first production in linear order usually takes precedence. In
the brains of primates, it is perhaps more plausible that the production

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 241

whose pattern is more complex is executed first, when two or more

match.
However, a tactic of counter-deception to this behaviour has been
recorded (No.253, observed by F. PLOOIJ, classified as "counterdeception
to concealment of interest in object"). One adult male chimpanzee was
alone in the Gombe feeding area and was about to be fed bananas. A
metal box was opened electrically from a distance; this makes an audible
click. Just at the moment when the box was opened, another adult male
chimpanzee came into view at the border of the clearing. The first
chimpanzee quickly closed the metal box and walked away several
metres, sat down and looked around as if nothing had happened. The
second male left the feeding area again, but as soon as he was out of sight,
he hid behind a tree and peered at the individual in the feeding area. As
soon as that individual approached and opened the metal box again, the
hiding chimpanzee approached, replaced the other and ate the bananas.
At this time, singleton chimpanzees only were fed, on a strict ration; thus
the second male, although dominant, could not have gained the bananas
any other way.
What rule could generate this counter-deception? Once again, the
simplest formulation would overgeneralize and produce behaviour never
actually observed:

(A self-grooms)
& - (leave, hide, and peek at A)
(self dominant-to A)

With this rule, chimpanzees would peep from behind trees every time a
subordinate self-grooms; in fact chimpanzees rarely do any such hiding,
which is why the observation was so striking. At the very least, something
about this subordinate's behaviour must have been different:

(A self-grooms)
&
(self dominant-to A) leave, hide, and peek at A)
&
(A looks guilty)

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242 BYRNE

The fact that we cannot at present specify exactly how the chimpanzee
"looked guilty" is not crucial; all that is required is that there was a
diagnostic difference in its observable behaviour. Chimpanzees are
known for their skill in using clues in the behaviour of other chimpanzees
that are too subtle for human observers to detect (MENZEL, 1974). How-
ever, the chimpanzee would have to notice routinely just those subtle
signs, in order that they could be learnt as discriminating stimuli (i.e. as
the pattern of a production). The implausibility of such careful observa-
tion by an individual incapable of attributing intentions to others - in this
case, the intention to conceal information - has been used to argue that
this record is evidence of some understanding of mental states in the
chimpanzee (BYRNE & WHITEN, 1991). Clearly, this one record in isola-
tion would prove nothing, and it will only have significance if other data
confirm the interpretation; already this seems likely to be the case (ibid).
But regardless of the eventual consensus of scientists on whether chim-
panzees can attribute intentions, the use of production notation is useful.
The formal notation focuses attention on the precise requirements of any
such claims, making analysis more straightforward than with verbal
descriptions alone. Given the ban on non-observable mental states in
behaviouristic analysis, this record would force behaviourists either to
argue for a pure coincidence, misinterpreted by the observer, or to accept
that implausibity which was noted above. A mentalistic account, in
contrast, would readily postulate the ability to understand another's guilt
and possible trickery. In this case, therefore, a cognitive account could
map onto the mentalist one - from which it mainly differs in precision and
definiteness - or a behaviourist one, but does not force a particular
implication in doing so.

Using productions to explore planning

So far, only a single behavioural rule has been required to account for
each example of a deceptive tactic discussed. However, productions can
also be used to model planning (i.e. thought processes), as follows. When
the pattern of one production matches objects in the world (i.e. in the
system's working memory), this causes its "procedure" to be executed; so
far, these procedures have all been behavioural output that affects the
animal's environment. But procedures can also effect changes to working
memoryas well as or instead of changes to the external world. If this has

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 243

happened, it may then follow that a different production now matches; its
execution in turn can change the contents of working memory again. The
process continues until no productions have matching patterns or the goal
is reached. In the study of human behaviour, the intermediate steps in
this cyclic process can be compared with human thought to test whether
the simulation is a good one (a procedure called "protocol analysis"; see
BYRNE, 1983).
Animal behaviour is not generally considered to involve planning; the
claim that animals might "think" is controversial (GRIFFIN, 1984). How-
ever, in some cases it seems as if concatenating more than one rule, each
learnt separately, is the most parsimonious explanation for what is seen -
planning, of a rudimentary sort. Consider the record of a juvenile chim-
panzee who, like the young baboon described above, was the victim of the
same tactic of an unprovoked scream (No.251, observed by T. NISHIDA,
classified as "counterdeception to using social tool"). In this instance, the
agent was an infant, and it used the tactic apparently in order to attract its
mother's attention and be allowed to suckle. The mother was consorting
with a powerful male chimpanzee and not in clear view of the situation.
The infant may well have learnt this tactic by reinforcement just as I have
suggested for the baboon record, but the victim acted quite differently.
The juvenile chimpanzee anticipated an attack before it could occur,
gave submissive calls and left. What process could account for this behav-
iour? Given an ability to concatenate rules learnt separately, the explana-
tion is straightforward, on the following lines (predictshould be read as
"insert in working memory"):

1 (B infant)
& predict (A supporter of B)
(A mother-of B)

2 (A female)
& predict (A powerful)
(A with male friend)

3 (B scream)
& predict (B's supporters attack self)
(B approach self)

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244 BYRNE

These three productions together would have the effect of setting up in

the juvenile's working memory a representation of "A attack self' plus "A
powerful", with obvious effects on the animal's subsequent behaviour.
Yet each production taken separately is quite straightforward to learn by
trial and error or observation, and the knowledge they embody is of a sort
demonstrated commonly by juvenile chimpanzees. Radical behaviour-
ism's ban on unobservable mental states would reject any such account.
Yet without the ability to make the simple predictive conjunction, a very
complex and unlikely history of coincidental reinforcements would be
needed for the following unitary rule to be acquired:

(B infant)
&
(B scream)
&
(B approach self) (retreat)
&
(A mother-of B)
&
(A with male friend)

The implausibility of a whole history of unusual coincidences having

occurred to the animals in this and other similar cases has been used to
argue for the ability of chimpanzees to combine items learnt separately
and so carry out simple planning (BYRNE & WHITEN, 199 1). The process of
causal inference that this planning involves may not be restricted to
chimpanzees or even primates: DICKINSON (1980) has argued for a very
similar ability of animals to conjoin propositions learnt separately, on the
basis of laboratory experiments with rats. Traditional and radical ver-
sions of behaviourism would be aghast at such an unobservable mental
process, but an augmented learning theory as developed by DICKINSON is
converging on the cognitive, representational position advocated here. A
mentalistic account of the young chimpanzee's behaviour would amount
simply to attributing a train of thought to it; but the scientific analysis of
human thinking has in any case normally used production systems. But
for the purposes of this paper, the important point is not whether or not
animals plan or think in any sense, but that the use of production system

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 FORMAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX BEHAVIOURS 245

notation aids in the careful process of analysis needed to evaluate compet-

ing explanations. This would apply equally if the behaviour had been
generated in experiments, instead of naturalistic observations, and if a
quite different explanation were favoured.

Comparison with human behaviour

The role of production system notation in clarifying the claims being

made by a particular explanation have been stressed in all these exam-
ples, and the advantage of using a formalism easily compared to tradi-
tional behaviouristic and ethological ones is evident. However, there is a
final pay-off to be gained, from using a notation that has already been
explored in cognitive psychology as a tool to simulate human planning
behaviour. This is that no qualitative change is needed to extend our
explanations to include human behaviour. Systems of (pattern + pro-
cedure) rules have already been used to simulate the thinking involved in
human logic (NEWELL et al., 1958), chess (NEWELL & SIMON, 1972), Piage-
tian conservation tasks (YOUNG, 1978), and so on. Competence (for
instance in chess skill) has proved to be a function of the numberof (pattern
procedure) linkages known by an individual (CHASE & SIMON, 1973),
rather than any vague attribute such as "clever thinking". Perhaps then,
the difference in thought between the non-human apes and human beings
is of a similar nature: a quantitative difference in mechanism, that has
qualitative effects on behaviour.

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