We’ve been watching chimpanzee’s faces. Why not? They can be funny to look at, often, and they can help us understand how we communicate emotions and why we do what we see.
Irish Times:
Being able to interpret [the emotions behind chimpanzee facial expressions] might not help us understand human babies any better but they might help us discover how the ability to make and read these expressions evolved, stated Prof Kim Bard, professor of cognitive and developmental psychology at Portsmouth.
“Some emotions are really easy to identify,” she told the British Science Association’s annual Festival of Science underway this week in Guildford.
…[However, c]himps often produce what looks like a wide-mouthed toothy “smile” but handlers have learned that this is actually a “fear grin” and means you are more likely to get a bite than a hug.
…[W]hile human babies display about 13 different expressions that we would loosely describe as a smile, 16 configurations have been defined for baby chimps when smiling.
I wonder if she knows what they’re thinking when they see us smile? Look, funny hairless monkey! Oh, poor thing’s scared!
At least it’s not boring….
BBC News:
Scientists from Emory University in Atlanta, US, have discovered that an animation of a yawning chimp will stimulate real chimps to yawn.They describe in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings B, how this could assist in the future study of empathy.
The work could also help unravel if and how computer games might cause children to imitate what they see on screen.