Friday, March 23, 2001

WILMINGTON, NC – Dr. Sally Boysen, a renowned expert in nonhuman primate cognition, will lecture on “Whose Mind Is it Anyway? Current Directions in Chimpanzee Cognition Studies” at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 5, in the UNCW Cameron Hall Auditorium, as part of the university’s Honors Scholars Program Lecture Series. This event is free and open to the public.

Boysen, professor of psychology and director of the Comparative Cognition Project at Ohio State University and an affiliate scientist for the Living Links Center for Human and Primate Evolution at Emory University, studies the learning capabilities of chimpanzees. According to Boysen, chimpanzees exhibit more complex and sophisticated skills than believed previously. In particular, chimps show several types of numerical skills as well as comprehension of scale models, she said. Boysen will discuss chimpanzees’ apparent use of representation in their natural vocalizations, a finding that sheds light on the evolution and emergence of human language.

The author of more than 85 scientific publications and book chapters, Boysen was featured in the PBS specials Animal Einsteins, The Question of Animal Intelligence and Inside the Animal Mind. She will also discuss her research at 3 p.m., Friday, April 6, in Dobo Hall, Room 103.

Both presentations are sponsored by the Honors Scholars Program, the Departments of Psychology, Biological Sciences and Earth Sciences, the Division for Academic Affairs, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Leadership Center.

For more information, contact Dr. Kate Bruce, director of the UNCW Honors Scholars Program, at 910/962-3374.

File photos of Dr. Sally Boysen are available in our For the Media section.