INTRODUCTION

This chapter is about the development of intelligent manipulations of objects in hand-reared infant gorillas. It is situated within the framework of what Köhler (1921) and Piaget (1936) identified as “practical” or “sensorimotor” intelligence. This kind of intelligence is nonlinguistic and nonreflective. It consists of the ability to produce novel coordinated sequences of actions adapted both to the physical and the social environment. In previous work (Gómez, 1990, 1991), I have explored the practical intelligence of young gorillas in the social domain. In this chapter I will explore their practical intelligence in the physical domain.

In his pioneering work, Köhler (1921) proposed that chimpanzees showed intelligent behavior when confronted with practical problems whose solving involved carrying out physical displacements or manipulations of objects. Chimpanzees were capable of producing actions whose organization was adapted to challenging environmental conditions. For example, when confronted with a goal hanging from the ceiling, the chimpanzees would drag a box under it, or make it fall with a stick, or simply find a roundabout way to approach the goal. Köhler thought that these and other comparable behaviors demonstrated some kind of intelligence or understanding in the apes, different from mere trial-and-error learning à la Thorndike (1898). He suggested that this practical intelligence could be explained within the framework of Gestalt concepts, but he never developed a detailed theoretical account of it.

It was Piaget (1936) who some years later provided a comprehensive theory of practical intelligence. He called it “sensorimotor” intelligence to emphasize the lack of underlying symbolic representations supporting the organization of the actions.