How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species » (1)

Cheney and Seyfarth enter the minds of vervet monkeys and other primates to explore the nature of primate intelligence and the evolution of cognition.

"This reviewer had to be restrained from stopping people in the street to urge them to read it: They would learn something of the way science is done, something about how monkeys see their world, and something about themselves, the mental models they inhabit."—Roger Lewin, Washington Post Book World

"A fascinating intellectual odyssey and a superb summary of where science stands."—Geoffrey Cowley, Newsweek

"A once-in-the-history-of-science enterprise."—Duane M. Rumbaugh, Quarterly Review of Biology

Booknews

An exploration of communication and intelligence in free-ranging primates. Much of the text is devoted to the authors' field studies on velvet monkeys in East Africa. Theories of modern cognitive science are applied in order to discover the similarity and differences between the cognition of monkeys and humans. Some topics discussed are: social behavior, vocal communication, deception, and attribution. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Acknowledgments
1. What Is It Like to be a Monkey?
2. Social Behavior
3. Social Knowledge
4. Vocal Communication
5. What the Vocalizations of Monkeys Mean
6. Summarizing the Mental Representations of Vocalizations and Social Relationships
7. Deception
8. Attribution
9. Social and Nonsocial Intelligence
10. How Monkeys See the World
Appendix
References
Index