David Premack

David Premack (born October 26, 1925) is currently emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

He is co-author, with Ann James Premack, of

• The Mind of an Ape (1983)
• Original Intelligence: The Architecture of the Human Mind (2002)

and co-author, with G. Woodruff of

• "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?" The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3,615-636

and author of

• Intelligence in Apes and Man (1976)
• "Gavagai! : or the Future History of the Animal Language Controversy" (1985). Cognition 19,207-296
• "Language in chimpanzees?" Science 172,808-822

Premack started in primate research in 1954 at the Yerkes Primate Biology Laboratory at Orange Park outside Jacksonville, Florida. His first two chimpanzee subjects, Sarah and Gussie, started at the University of Missouri and travelled with him to the University of California, Santa Barbara, and then to the University of Pennsylvania, where he had up to nine chimpanzee subjects.

Premack debated of the nature of linguistic performance in apes with Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, during one of the last moments when Jacques Monod could participate in intellectual debates shortly before his untimely death.

Premack is known within the field of behavioral psychology for formulating what is referred to as Premack's principle.

Awards

• Premack is a William James Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

See also

• Premack's principle

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