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<\/a>This question can be fun to debate. The most common answers — “tool use” and “language” — have their champions. However, lots of animals communicate with sounds. Several species use tools.<\/p>\nThese abilities are rare among animals; however, they’re not uniquely human. So: what might be the key distinction?<\/p>\n
M&Ms and Pencils<\/h2>\n
Imagine this scenario.<\/p>\n
A young girl comes into your office with her father. You show her a box full of M&Ms. The father then leaves the room, and you — quite conspicuously — pour out the M&Ms and replace them with pencils<\/em>.<\/p>\n When the father comes back into the room, you ask the young girl “What does your father think is in the box?”<\/p>\n A five-year-old answers this question quite easily. Even though she watched you put pencils in the box, she also knows that her father wasn’t there when that happened. As a result, his knowledge differs from hers. He (falsely) believes that the box contains\u00a0M&Ms<\/em>, although she (correctly) knows that it contains pencils<\/em>.<\/p>\n A three-year-old, however, can’t manage this duality. If she<\/em> knows there are pencils in the box, then she thinks\u00a0everyone<\/em> knows there are pencils in the box. She simply can’t process the idea that others have false factual beliefs.<\/p>\n This ability to distinguish between what I know and what you know goes by the awkward name “theory of mind.”<\/p>\n Most 5-year-olds have theory of mind; they know that you and I have different ideas in our heads. Most 3-year-olds don’t have theory of mind. They believe that everything they know is known by everyone else.<\/p>\n In\u00a0The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition<\/em>, Michael Tomasello argues that\u00a0theory of mind<\/em> is the uniquely human cognitive trait.<\/p>\n Because humans think about what other humans are thinking, we have been able to develop our environment (think, skyscrapers) and our cognitive capabilities (think, calculus) with astonishing rapidity.<\/p>\n Each generation can hang onto the ideas developed by previous generations, and so progress beyond them.<\/p>\n Here’s a very basic example:<\/p>\n I might say to you: “A platypus is in the elevator.”<\/p>\n Or I might say: “The platypus is in the elevator.”<\/p>\n This tiny linguistic difference (“a” vs. “the”) shows that I’m considering what you already know. In the first sentence, you don’t know about the platypus — even though I do. In the second sentence, we both know about it.<\/p>\n Tomasello connects theory of mind to human culture and development with remarkable dexterity and clarity; I highly recommend his book. (He’s also a lively speaker, if you ever have the opportunity to hear him.)<\/p>\nUniquely Human: Candidate #1<\/h2>\n
Uniquely Human: Candidate #2<\/h2>\n