David Premack
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

David Premack (October 26, 1925 – June 11, 2015) was an American psychologist who was a professor of psychology at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
. He was educated at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
when
logical positivism Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of ...
was in full bloom. The departments of Psychology and Philosophy were closely allied.
Herbert Feigl Herbert Feigl (; ; December 14, 1902 – June 1, 1988) was an Austrian- American philosopher and an early member of the Vienna Circle. He coined the term " nomological danglers". Biography The son of a trained weaver who became a textile designer ...
,
Wilfred Sellars Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (; May 20, 1912 – July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher and prominent developer of Critical realism (philosophy of perception), critical realism who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in t ...
, and
Paul Meehl Paul Everett Meehl (3 January 1920 – 14 February 2003) was an American clinical psychologist. He was the Hathaway and Regents' Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, and past president of the American Psychological Association ...
led the philosophy seminars, while Group Dynamics was led by
Leon Festinger Leon Festinger (8 May 1919 – 11 February 1989) was an American social psychologist who originated the theory of cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory. The rejection of the previously dominant behaviorist view of social psycholo ...
and Stanley Schachter.


Research

Premack started in primate research in 1954 at the Yerkes Primate Biology Laboratory at Orange Park outside Jacksonville, Florida. His first two chimpanzee subjects, Sarah and Gussie, started at the
University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...
and traveled with him to the
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...
, and then to the University of Pennsylvania, where he had nine chimpanzee subjects. Premack's first publication (1959) was a new theory of
reinforcement In Behaviorism, behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular ''Antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimulus''. Fo ...
(which became known as Premack's principle). It argued that the more probable response in any pair of responses could reinforce the less probable response—demonstrating that reinforcement is a relative, not an absolute property.Premack, D. (1959). Toward empirical behavior laws: I. Positive reinforcement. ''Psych Rev.'', ''66'', 219-233. This theory predicts six conditions, all of which have been supported by evidence: #Reinforcement is a relative property. Responses A, B, C have a descending rank order of probability. A will therefore reinforce both B and C. C will reinforce neither. This suggests that reinforcement is an absolute property. However, B corrects this view. B will reinforce C, but not A. B is both a
reinforcer In behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular '' antecedent stimulus''. For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever ...
and not a reinforcer. Reinforcement is therefore a relative property.Premack, D. (1963). Rate differential reinforcement in monkey manipulation. ''J. Exp Anal Behav'',''6'',81-90. #Reinforcement is a reversible property. When drinking is more probable than running, drinking reinforces running. When the probabilities are reversed, running reinforces drinking.Premack, D. (1962). Reversibility of the reinforcement relation. ''Science'', ''136'', 255-257. #Historically, consummatory responses, eating and drinking, have served exclusively as reinforcers, but consummatory responses are, like any other response, subject to reinforcement. #Reinforcement and
punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a deterrent to a particular action or beh ...
, traditionally contrasted as opposites, are in fact equivalent except for sign. If response A leads contingently to B, and B is more probable than A, A will increase in frequency (reinforcement); conversely, if A leads contingently to B, and B is less probable than A, A will decrease in frequency (punishment). The major contrast is not between reward and punishment; but between reward and punishment as contrasted with freedom. Freedom is the condition in which stimuli are freely (not contingently) available to an individual.Premack, D. (1971). Two sides of a generalization, or catching up with commonsense: Reinforcement and punishment in R. Glaser (ed.) The nature of reinforcement. ''N.Y. Academic Press''Terhune, J., & Premack, D. (1970). On the proportionality between the probability of not-running and the punishment effect of being forced to run. ''Learning and Motivation'', ''1'', 141-149. #When motorized running is more probable than lever pressing but less probable than drinking, then running reinforces lever pressing and punishes drinking. In other words, the same response can be both a reinforcer and a punisher - at the same time and for the same individual.Terhune, J., & Premack, D. (1974). Comparison of reinforcement and punishment functions produced by same contingent event in the same subjects. ''Learning and Motivation'', ''5'', 221-250. #The equivalence of reinforcement and punishment is further suggested in this interesting fact:
rat Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include '' Neotoma'' (pack rats), '' Bandicota'' (bandicoo ...
s are either sensitive to both reinforcement and punishment, or insensitive to both; they are never sensitive to one but insensitive to the other. Premack introduced the concept of
Theory of Mind In psychology and philosophy, theory of mind (often abbreviated to ToM) refers to the capacity to understand other individuals by ascribing mental states to them. A theory of mind includes the understanding that others' beliefs, desires, intent ...
, with Guy Woodruff, in an article published in 1978.Premack, D. & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? ''Behav. Brain Sc.'', ''4'', 515-526. This has proven to be a fruitful concept in psychology and neuroscience. For example, hundreds of articles have been published on theory of mind in fields ranging from comparative psychology studies of cognitive capacities of animalsCall, J. & Tomasello, M. (2008). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. ''Trends Cogn Sci.'', ''12''(5), 189-192.Emery, N.J. & Clayton, N.S. (2009). Comparative social cognition. ''Annu Rev Psychol.'',''60'', 87-113. to human developmental psychology studies of infant cognitionWellman, H.M. & Cross, D. (2001). Theory of mind and conceptual change. ''Child Dev.'', ''72''(3), 70270-7. to social neuroscience studies of the brain substrates that mediate simulations of mental processes in other individuals.Yoshida, W., Dolan, R.J., & Friston, K.J. (2008). Game theory of mind. ''PLoS Comput Biol'', ''4''(12), e1000254. Premack's analysis of same/different led him and his associates to show that chimpanzees can do analogies. Sameness/difference is not a relation between objects (e.g., A same A, A different B) or properties, it is a relation between relations: For example: consider the relation between AA and BB, CD and EF on the one hand; and AA and CD on the other. AA and BB are both instances of same; the relation between them is "same." CD and EF are both instances different; the relation between them therefore is "same." AA is an instance of same, and CD an instance of different; the relation between them is "different." This analysis set the stage for teaching chimpanzees the word "same" for AA, and "different" for CD. When taught these words, chimpanzees spontaneously formed simple analogies between: physically similar relations (e.g., small circle is to large circle as small triangle is to large triangle), and functionally similar relations (e.g., key is to lock as can opener is to can).Gillan, D. J., Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1981). Reasoning in the chimpanzee: 1. Analogical reasoning. ''J Exp Psych: Animal Behavior Processes'', ''7'', 1-17. A nonverbal method for testing causal inference designed by Premack made it possible to show that both young children and chimpanzees are capable of causal inference.Premack, D. (1976). ''Intelligence in ape and man''. Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N.J. Premack demonstrated that chimpanzees can reassemble a disassembled face, placing the eyes, nose, mouth in the appropriate place. In addition he showed that chimpanzees are capable of symbolic behavior. After viewing themselves in a mirror wearing, on different occasions, a hat, glasses, necklace, and given the picture of a face, 48 hours later, the chimpanzees applied clay to the top of the head (hat), to the eyes (glasses), and the throat (necklace) respectively.Premack, D. (1975). Putting a face together. ''Science'', ''188'', 228-236. Premack further argued that young children divide the world into two kinds of objects, those that move only when acted upon by other objects, and those that are self-propelled and move on their own. He argued that infants attribute intentionality to self-propelled objects that show goal-directed action. Further that infants attribute value to the interaction of intentional objects, e.g. positive value to gentle actions such as one object caressing another, negative value to harsh actions such as one object hitting another. In addition infants assign positive value when one object helps another to achieve its goal, negative value when one object hinders another from achieving its goal. Finally, he and Ann Premack argued: infants equate caressing with helping (despite their physical dissimilarity); and equate hitting with hindering (despite their physical dissimilarity.Premack, D. (1990). The infant's theory of self-propelled objects. ''Cognition'', ''36'', 1-16.Premack, D., & Premack, A. (1994). Infants attribute value +/- to the goal-directed actions of self-propelled objects. ''J Cog. Neuroscience'', ''9'', 848-856. Premack has focused on cognitive differences between the intelligence of animals and humans. Human competence is domain general, capable of serving indeterminately many goals; animal competence is a narrow adaptation, serving only one goal. For instance, humans teach all possible activities (different ones in different cultures), whereas
meerkat The meerkat (''Suricata suricatta'') or suricate is a small mongoose found in southern Africa. It is characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail, and a brindled coat pattern. The head-and-body ...
s and
cat The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...
s, two of very few animals that teach at all, teach one activity: how to eat dangerous food such as
scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the Order (biology), order Scorpiones. They have eight legs and are easily recognized by a pair of Chela (organ), grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward cur ...
s in the one case, and how to stalk mice in the other.Premack, D. (2007). Human and animal cognition: Continuity and discontinuity. ''Proc Nat Aca Science'', ''104'', 13861-13867. What explains the domain-generality of human competence? Human competence is composed of an interweaving of multiple evolutionarily-independent components; animal competence of a single evolutionary component.Premack, D. (in press). Why humans are unique: Three theories. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Premack debated of the nature of linguistic performance in apes with
Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, ; ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called genetic epistemology. ...
and
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, during one of the last moments when
Jacques Monod Jacques Lucien Monod (; 9 February 1910 – 31 May 1976) was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of e ...
could participate in intellectual debates shortly before his death. He died at the age of 89, and was buried at Riverside National Cemetery on June 17, 2015.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Premack, David 1925 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American psychologists American cognitive scientists Animal cognition writers Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists University of California, Santa Barbara faculty University of Missouri faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Minnesota alumni Experimental psychologists