ABSTRACT
In the early behavior studies of captive monkeys and apes, for example in the accounts of G. J. Romanes, L. T. Hobhouse, E. L. Thorndike and others, the object of comparison was the “mentality” of the animals and that of “Man.” The comparative significance, either amongst the monkeys and apes themselves or phylogenetically, of much of the problem-solving data, on tool-using, detours, delayed responses, and discrimination learning has not been at all clear. The problems of behavior comparisons of the monkeys and apes are not distinguishable from those which the ethologists have had to surmount in their studies of sub-primate animals, except perhaps in some major respects. The problems are common to all comparative animal behavior work, but tend to be magnified because of the apparent social complexity of the monkeys and apes, because they have been essentially regarded as “learning” animals, and because they seem especially to elicit observational and methodological error.
