Monkeying Around With A Camera

A few days ago I posted on the ridiculous research conducted by Betsy Herrelko, at the Edinburgh Zoo, giving chimpanzees a reinforced video camera to allow them to make a movie of themselves. I pointed out that everything of merit we have accumulated so far in comparative cognitive psychology screams at us that chimps lack the intelligence, social intelligence, and manual dexterity ever to actually understand the concepts involved in movie making, never mind the technology and methodology of doing so. In this amusing Spiked Online article Birmingham-based psychologist Stuart Derbyshire weighs in with his own devastating put-down of this piece of arrant nonsense.

As Derbyshire hints, one has to question the motives of the BBC here in broadcasting the "chimp movie" having, presumably, edited hours of video-rubbish and added the sound-track, effects and music. It betrays, I think, a ridiculously anthropomorphic element behind the Natural History Unit's recent film-making - as also shown in the final programme in Attenborough's latest series which was decidedly whimsical about our nearest relatives.

Oliver James' Rant

My attention was drawn to a recent rant against the role genes play in human behaviour, by the psychologist Oliver James, by a rebuke, yesterday, from two prominent scientists working in the area of genomics and neurobiology, Chris Ponting and Keith Talbot.

James had blithely asserted that there has been a shambolic and wholesale retreat from the role genes play in determining our behaviour, ever since the human genome was fully published some nine years ago. He misunderstands comments made by Craig Venter regarding the way in which genes can or cannot have an impact on the human brain in the light of the discovery that there are "only" 25,000 working genes in the human genome; suggests that research into the genetic component of ADHD has run into the sand; and sounds the death knell for theories that genes can contribute to human behavioural traits by applauding a meta-analysis by Risch, in JAMA last year, that could not uphold the results of earlier longitudinal studies on the role short variants of the serotonin transporter gene have on depression. I've linked to James' original article and here is the riposte:


Letters
Genetic contribution to human behaviour

The Guardian, Thursday 28 January 2010

In his latest rant against genetics, Oliver James either does not understand, or ­wilfully misunderstands, the genetic basis of neurobiology, and purposefully overlooks huge swathes of scientific literature (Nature v nurture – what are the latest genetic ­findings, 23 January).

Despite the enormous complexity of the human genome, geneticists are continuing to reveal many DNA changes that explain disorders such as learning disability and autism. These changes are often private to each ­individual. This tells us that ­different parts of the human genome can be ­disrupted independently in people with a single ­disease: there are likely to be many dozens, possibly ­hundreds, of "autism genes", for example.

It is, indeed, "extremely unlikely that there are single genes for major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia" but this does not indicate that genetics play no part. Like the brain itself, the genetic contribution to behaviour is complex.

This is not a "fallback position", but a straightforward and ­dispassionate appraisal of the facts. Far from ­having "to admit defeat", geneticists have begun to disperse the fog that has ­enveloped genetic disease. Their new insights should ensure that unwarranted pronouncements of fault are not levelled at ­parents who ­produce anyone other than a "normal" child.

Chris Ponting

Medical research council and professor of genomics, University of Oxford

Kevin Talbot

Reader in the department of neurology, University of Oxford

Dear reader make what you will of James' target article. He has for years fought against the idea that genes play a prominent role in the development of human behavioural traits and is fond of exclusively stressing "the environment" and, therefore, the unique plasticity of human mental traits. I consider him to be a stupid and wilfuly ignorant commentator, as do Ponting and Talbot, and anyone who has ploughed through the genetics chapters in NOT A CHIMP will, I hope, be convinced that - to the contrary of James' assertions - the last nine years have uncovered a host of genetic mechanisms, and structural features of the human genome, that have sculpted our brains and cognition over the last six million years. However, the Risch findings do deserve further comment. You can access a careful and balanced report on them, by Bruce Bower, at:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/44733/title/Gene_plus_stress_equals_depression_debate

As Bower points out, Caspi and Moffitt, the authors of the longitudinal Dunedin study, mentioned by James and covered in the penultimate chapter of NOT A CHIMP, mount a solid defence against the negative findings of Risch's meta-analysis, which took into consideration a number of larger studies done with much less satisfactory measures of depression etc. than the Dunedin study. Moreover, as I reported, James ignores, or does not know about, the numerous pieces of scientific work on normal volunteers which links variants in MAO and serotonin transporter genes to hyper-vigilance and depression, and poor coupling between amygdala (the brain's fear centre), the anterior cingulate cortex, and the frontal lobes of the brain.

James concludes thus: "In Darwinian terms, it has always made much more sense that we should be born plastic. Obviously, genes confer fundamentals, such as the capacity for humour or anger, but how much we express these is in response to our particular FAMILY situation, for which we need flexibility, not predetermination. if genes play little part in how our children turn out, that is incredibly good news. Unlike our DNA, we can do something about them."

The obvious point is that the action of genes in the brain does not imply predetermination of behaviour, and the fine and intricate nature - through numerous mechanisms - of control of gene expression actually creates the flexible engine James searches for. Genes DO play a fundamental part in who and what we are as advanced cognitive animals. Generations of parents who have brought up several children apiece know full well, from individual differences and their attempted effects on outcomes, the role that genes play in the development of mental traits in all of us. Their experiences reveal James' smugness for what it is - a deliberate "one eye shut" approach to the evolution and expression of human functional neurobiology. Exclude the subtle nature of gene-environment interaction, and the co-evolution of genes and environment at your peril - you will dance witlessly around the enigma of human behaviour for ever.

Peter Pan Bonobos

In the chapter THE APE THAT DOMESTICATED ITSELF I go into the theory that bonobos are neotenised chimpanzees - i.e. they have retained juvenile traits - and that this involved selection against the levels of aggression we normally associate with more demonic chimpanzee society. The suggestion is, that in terms of neoteny, we humans are bonobos writ large. In this article in New Scientist Ewen Callaway covers similar ground, reporting on similar arguments from a research associate of Richard Wrangham and Brian Hare, Victoria Wobber, from Harvard. Callaway also cites the research of Mehmet Somel, now at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, which claimed that certain genes tend to be activated in the human brain at a later stage of development than they do in the brains of chimps and rhesus monkeys.

For those interested in taking this further, Somel's paper in PNAS is open access and a pdf can be downloaded from here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2659716/pdfzpq5743.pdf

Altruism In Forest Chimpanzees: The Case Of Adoption

In the final chapter of NOT A CHIMP I deal briefly with the phenomenon of altruism and note that, while one or two investigators had made claims for the altruistic behaviour of chimps, in aiding others to secure food, or aiding researchers to reach out-of-reach objects, other influential authors claimed that chimps are unconcerned about the welfare of others. I noted the fact that, where altruism occurs in primates, it has less to do with whether or not the species concerned is closely related to man - as in the chimps - but more to do with socio-ecological factors. Hence, marmosets show altruism in food sharing perhaps because they are, like us, an allo-parenting species - they share the costs of bringing up baby.

Now Christophe and Hedwige Boesch, and others, who are from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, and have been studying the Tai Forest chimps in the Ivory Coast for over a quarter of a century, have documented adoption of very young orphaned chimps by both adult females and males. The adoption incurs genuine costs in food sharing, carrying the infant during skirmishes with neighbouring chimps, and stopping and waiting for slower juveniles during travel. What, they ask, could be the socio-ecological glue that holds adoption together such that it is shown in wild west African chimp societies but not among captured colonies of chimps - and not among the various East African groups of chimps that have been extensively studied? The authors point to the very high predation pressure upon the Tai chimps, by leopards. This, they say, has promoted strong within-group solidarity in the form of care for injured individuals and joint coalition defence. Once established, they say, this care for the welfare of others, and high level of defence cooperation, generalizes into new social contexts, including adoption.

Premotor Cortex Responsible For Perception And Production Of Prosody

Prosody, as the authors point out, is the melody and intonation of speech and involves the rhythm, rate, pitch and voice quality to relay both linguistic and emotional information. It has long been known, they say, that the production of prosody is an area where the premotor cortex is specialized, and it was thought that the perception of prosody took place mainly in the right temporal lobe. They set out to test whether or not the premotor cortex was also involved. They discovered shared networks for production and perception of emotional prosody in motor-related regions of the left inferior frontal gyrus and another region in the dorsal premotor cortex. They discovered shared netqworks for perception and production of linguistic prosody in the left inferior frontal gyrus too, together with the anterior cingulate cortex and insula (two prominent parts of the "social brain".) Here is the start of their conclusions:

"We found areas in the premotor cortex, including the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left dorsal premotor cortex were active for both the perception and production of prosody. This was true for both emotional prosody and linguistic prosody. These results are consistent with previous findings of activity in premotor regions during prosody perception. The current result indicates a link between perception and production, where brain areas that are commonly thought to be involved with motor planning are also active for perception. While there have been numerous previous reports of perceptual processing in motor areas for action observation, for the sounds of actions, and even for speech, to our knowledge this is the first report of “mirror” processing for prosody. It may indicate that some components of prosodic perception involve mapping the heard speech to areas that are important for producing that same speech. Such mapping of acoustic signals to articulatory signals is reminiscent of the motor theory of speech perception."

So, we are back in disputed "mirror neuron" territory again - and especially the possible role of mirror neurons in the perception and production of speech - hence the reference to a motor theory of speech acquisition. They go on:

Interestingly, our data indicate that common motor areas for production and perception of prosody were found in only the left hemisphere (left IFG and premotor cortices). This was true for both linguistic and emotional prosody. Thus, while emotional prosody perception and also prosody production are known to activate the right hemisphere, “mirror” regions for prosody seem to be stronger in the left hemisphere. This is consistent with all previous reports of an auditory mirror system as being lateralized to the left hemisphere, and may indicate a special role in the left premotor cortex for more multimodal processing (motor, visual, and auditory), while the right equivalent areas instead may be stronger in motor and visual properties rather than auditory properties."

This is consistent with a multi-modal role for the anterior language centre of the brain - Broca's area. Now we get to the "social brain" bit:

"Prosodic ability is known to correlate with deficits associated with affective components of empathic processing. This is best observed in individuals with psychopathy. These individuals, who often score low on emotional aspects of empathy, also tend to score poorly on the ability to perceive prosody. Our behavioral results further support a positive correlation between ability to perceive prosody and ability to feel emotional aspects of empathy. We found that individuals who scored higher on measures of empathy showed more activity during emotional prosody perception in anatomically the same premotor areas that we previously found to be active for the perception and production of prosody, including the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and premotor cortex. They also were found to show less activity in this region during neutral prosodic intonation, indicating that more empathic individuals utilize premotor regions for emotional prosodic perception, but less for non-emotional stimuli. This data support the notion that components of empathy to emotional stimuli may rely on simulation processes carried out, in part, by motor-related areas. Thus, in order to understand someone else's prosodic intonation, we may simulate how we would produce the given intonation ourselves, which in turn may be a component of the process involved in creating empathic feeling for that individual. These data indicate that individuals who score higher on scales of affective empathy also show more activity in motor-related areas during prosody perception. Our findings extend previous correlations between the mirror neuron system and individual differences in empathy to include, for the first time, an emotional auditory stimulus: happy or sad prosodic intonation."

Babies Share Attention From The Start

We've known or a long time (from the work of Andy Meltzoff, among others) that babies seem tuned to respond to faces almost from birth, and share attention on a third object or person from a matter of months onwards. This ability to share attention, draw a third person in to share attention to an object of interest, for instance, is considered one of the crucial building blocks to eventual full theory of mind. Now Tobias Grossman and Mark Johnson, from Birkbeck College's Babylab, have produced further evidence of attention sharing in babies 5 months old, and that they employ the left prefrontal cortex - as do adults - when they participate in shared attention with an adult.

Chimpcam Movie Tonight 8 p.m. BBC 2

Here's the rubbish primatology story of the decade. Betsy Herrelko spent 18 months acclimatising a group of chimps at Edinburgh zoo in the viewing of and operation of a specially reinforced chimp cam. The first chimp movie airs tonight and you can see a taster for it on this website. Hugo van Lawick it ain't. Decades of comparative cognitive psychology scream at us that chimps lack both the intelligence and particularly social intelligence to even begin to grasp the point of making a movie about themselves, never mind the lack of technical prowess to even begin to get a handle on effective use of a camera. The results look just like the sorry evidence that you or I have wandered around, camera dangling from our wrist, oblivious to the fact that we have inadvertently left it running. This mis-appliance of science is a prime candidate for the Ignobel Science prize this year. Spin in your grave Mr. DeMille!!