David Premack

David Premack ( born October 26, 1925 in Aberdeen, South Dakota) is an American psychologist and behavioral scientist who, along with his longtime collaborator and wife Ann James Premack, inter alia, significant contributions to the field of behaviorism made ​​, the language ability of chimpanzees explored and a Theory of Mind ( " theory of mind " ) contributed.

Career

David Premack studied psychology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he earned degrees in 1951 a master's degree in experimental psychology and statistics. In 1955 he received his doctorate in the fields of experimental psychology and philosophy. From 1955 to 1964 he was an associate as a Research Professor at the University of Missouri- Columbia, and from 1965 to 1975 as a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara operates. From 1975 until his retirement in 1990, he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research priorities

David Premack has done at least three major contributions to the progress of science.

For one, he has formulated in 1962 the so-called Premack principle, a further development in the field of behavior -shaping by instrumental and operant conditioning. He could show that reinforcement does not necessarily satisfy a biological need (eg for food ), but that any behavior that spontaneously more often shown than another, reinforces this. Behaviors with a higher probability of occurrence ( in humans, for example, play ) can be used as amplifiers for behaviors with a lower probability of occurrence (eg learning vocabulary ) can be used. On the other hand, according to Premack, learning vocabulary serve as an amplifier for clean toilet.

Premack also has made a significant contribution to the understanding of the cognitive and linguistic abilities of chimpanzees. In contrast to Roger Fouts, who taught his chimpanzee sign language for the deaf, Premack taught his test animals dealing with plastic chips. Here he drew on earlier experiments by Wolfgang Köhler, who had already explored the use of tools as an example of intelligent behavior of monkeys in the early 20th century. Premack publications on that of chimpanzees with plastic words " written " language ( for example: Mary, give chocolate to Sarah ) are among the important pioneering work in this field and have ultimately contributed to the " consumption " of apes for research purposes by many researchers is considered no longer acceptable and that are demanded by a growing number even human rights for apes.

David Premack has finally made ​​important contributions to a theory of mind ( " theory of mind " ) and helped to open up a new area within the cognitive sciences: The search for an answer to the question: What do we know about our knowledge? As a landmark for this area is considered his 1978 written with a young colleague publication on meta-cognition in chimpanzees, ie on the ability of these apes to understand what goes on in another individual before him. This publication suggested a variety of experimental studies on human cognition and social intelligence. Example, it was found that children do not even recognize under three to four years that other people that ( the kids) what they can see in the experiment, can not see.

Works

• David Premack, Ann Premack: Original Intelligence. Unlocking the Mystery of Who We Are. McGraw- Hill, New York 2003, ISBN 0-07-138142-2
• David Premack, Ann Premack: The Mind of an Ape '.' WW Norton & Co Inc, 1984, ISBN 0393301605 (this book won the Award for Excellence by the American Psychological Association)
• Premack, D. & Woodruff, G.: Does the chipmanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 1978, 1, pp. 515-526
• David Premack: Intelligence in Ape and Man. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Inc., 1977, ISBN 0470989092