Preface

This year 2002 is the centenary of Kinji Imanishi (1902-1992), the father of Japanese Primatology. In honor of Imanishi and his successor the late Dr. Jun'ichirou Itani (1936-2001), we are pleased to announce the first Imanishi-Itani Memorial Lecture for Primatology by Dr. Frans de Waal.
Dr. de Waal is one of the most famous ethologist and primatologist. He is a pioneer of the study of social cognition in chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates. He has published numerous books including "Chimpanzee Politics", "Peacemaking Among Primates", "Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals", and "Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape". His recent book titled "The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist" talked about the culture in nonhuman animals and also mentioned a lot about the pioneering studies done by Japanese primatologists such as Kinji Imanishi and Jun'ichiro Itani.
Prior to the talk given by Dr. de Waal, there will be two introductory and related talks on "Culture in nonhuman primates" given by Toshisada Nishida and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. The meeting place, Shiran-kaikan, is located only 5 min away from Kyoto University Museum, where a special exhibition on "Centenary of the birth of Imanishi" is held. You are recommended to see the exhibition.
The Imanishi-Itani Memorial Lecture for Primatology is the first part of a larger international symposium. This symposium is the second international symposium for Comparative Cognitive Science (SCCS2002). The first one was held in March 2000, that was titled "Phylogeny of Cognition and Language". The result was already published in the special issues of two journals, "Psychologia" Vol.44 No.1 and "Animal Cognition" Vol. 4, No. 3-4. Please visit the following site for the program and the abstracts of the previous meeting of SCCS2000. This will help you to understand the purpose of the symposia for the rise of Comparative Cognitive Science:
http://www.saga-jp.org/coe_abst/coe00_FS.html
The second one this time, SCCS2002, is titled "Social transmission of knowledge". However, we aim to organize this meeting from a broader perspective, sharing the framework of Comparative Cognitive Science. The real goal of the symposium is to promote the comparative study for understanding the evolutionary origins of human cognition and behavior, and to promote the mutual understanding among the researchers.
For that purpose, we invited the seven foreign participants. As you see, this is a mixture of well-established distinguished researchers and the ones in early career (but the rising stars). Through our previous experience, such a kind of mixture makes the meeting more exciting, pleasant, and fruitful. There should be many Japanese participants, especially young ones, too. We have a special guest: Dr. Masao KAWAI, one of the founders of Japanese primatology. His pioneering work on "Sweet-potato washing in Koshima monkeys" is still among the most well-known achievement of the study of primates in the history. He will reflect his 50 years research on the wild population of monkeys.
We hope that all participants will use this rare opportunity to gain an overview of evolutionary approaches toward cognition and behavior in humans and nonhuman animals, to learn about their colleagues, and to enjoy the quiet winter in Japan.

Tetsuro Matsuzawa
Chair of SCCS2002
Primate Research Institute,
Kyoto University