Animal Cognition
Updated: 3/31/99
The basic problem is one of communication. Humans can discuss their
cognitions with each other, but humans cannot do so with animals.
Wittgenstein put the question thus, "If a lion could talk, we could
not understand him." What does that mean? Early efforts by Romanes to
create a true comparative psychology were doomed because of his
anthropomorphism. The work of the early ethologists, especially von
Frisch's work with honeybee communication was of great importance
because it showed how anthropomorphising could be avoided. More
recent efforts have focused on attempting to understand how animals
think through experimentation. Seyfarth, Marler, and Cheney's
research on vervet monkeys stands out, as does nearly all of the work
with primate communication. The area is still controversial, however,
but the level of acrimony has decreased markedly.
- History
- Early workers
- Charles Darwin
- The Descent of Man
- The Expressions of Emotion in Man and in
Animals
- George Romanes
- C. Lloyd Morgan
- Introduction to Comparative Psychology
- Morgan's canon--paucity of explanatory effort
- Important
Scientists in the Early Development of Comparative
Cognition--tutorial, basic, medium, links, graphics
- The ethologists
- Charles Otis Whitman
- American
- Worked on pigeon taxonomy
- Oskar Heinroth
- German
- Worked on duck taxonomy
- Konrad Lorenz
- Austrian
- Continued Heinroth's research on ducks
- Branched out to imprinting and other work (origins of
violence)
- Autobiography
of Konrad Lorenz--text, adv., long, links, graphics
- Autobiography
of Nikolaas Tinbergen--text, adv., long, links,
graphics
- Autobiography
of Karl von Frisch--text, adv., long, links,
graphics
- Animal learning
- Edward Thorndike
- Trial and error learning
- Puzzle boxes
- John Watson
- Sooty tern research
- Behaviorism
- Ivan Pavlov
- Classical conditioning
- First mechanical explanation of animal behavior
- B. F. Skinner
- Operant conditioning
- Powerful mechanical explanation for animal behavior
- The Comparative Method
- Broad view of behavior
- not only focused on human behavior
- behavior embedded within evolutionary theory
- Continuity
- Humans just another species
- Species as solutions to adaptive problems
- The role of evolution
- Dynamic interrelationships between animals and
environment
- Utility of comparative method
- Provides comparisons between species
- visual cliff data (Gibson and Walk, 1960)
- Provides comparisons within species
- male--female perceptual differences
- pain
- skin pain greater in females during ovulation
- estrogen leads to lower pain thresholds
- women report more pain, but also cope with pain
better
- Animal Cognition and Cognitive Science
- Simpler model than human cognition
- may be an easier arena for cognitive science experiments
- Wider variety of organism-environment interactions
- all environments open to study
- Construction of animal analogs
- the goal of simulating human behavior is a long way off
- animals may be an easier place to start
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