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Comparative Cognition
What is Comparative Cognition?
• Comparative Cognition: understanding of the nature and evolution
of cognition in human and nonhuman animals.
• Cognition
– Latin for “knowledge” or “thinking”
– The use of mental representation of some past experience as a basis for
action
– Internal state connecting input to output: Sensory -- Mental Representation –
Response
• Animal Cognition
– Title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of nonhuman
animals
– Infer the existence of mental representations based on the behavior of the
animal
– "Cognition, broadly defined, includes all ways in which animals take in
information through the senses, process, retain and decide to act on it."
Shettleworth (2001) page 277
– See Information Processing Model
Hypothesized Memory Processes: Encoding, Consolidation, and Retrieval
What is Comparative Cognition?
• It is Not About Intelligence
• George John Romanes (1848 –1894) Animal Intelligence (1882)
– see PowerPoint 10_Instrumental slide #2
• Intelligence
– the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience
• Animal intelligence is used in three distinct but overlapping ways
– "incorrectly" as a synonym for animal cognition
– to pose the question “are animals intelligent?”
• which should be "are nonhuman animals intelligent?"
• but usually means are they as smart as humans
– to denote a discussion of relative levels of intelligence in different animal
species
• It really is about differences in cognitive abilities across species
• nonhuman animals have specialized cognitive abilities that humans
do not have
Controversy over studies of comparative cognition
• Arguments against cognitive approach (Wasserman 1995)
– Using internal cognitive processes “mental” does not add explanation
• S - Cognition - R is no better then S - R for explaining behavior
– Non-human animals do not have minds
• They are not conscious decision makers
• Provides a clear separation between humans and other animals
– If non-human animals do have minds it would be impossible to study
• Minds are private and subjective
• Humans can communicate verbally about what is on their minds
– Clever appearing behavior can be explained by simple mechanisms
• Simple associative mechanisms
• Simple innate mechanisms such as reflex, M.A.P.
Controversy over studies of comparative cognition
• Conflating mental “mind” with consciousness
• Conscious awareness is not required to process information
– For non-human animals or for humans (Bargh 2003)
– see PowerPoint 02_define slides # 7-9
• For example: episodic memory does not require conscious
processing
– what, where, when, as part of food storage in Scrub Jays
– this will be covered in Chapter 12
• How much conscious intent do nonhuman animals have?
– very difficult to determine and there are widely varying opinions as to the
role of consciousness in cognition
– Donald R. Griffin (see below) gives it an important role
– Heyes thinks it should be ignored
• "It is perhaps at this moment that the cognitive ethologist decides to hang up his
field glasses, become a cognitive psychologist, and have nothing further to do
with talk about consciousness or intention." (1987a, p. 124)
Controversy over studies of comparative cognition
• Darwin's influence on comparative cognition was an argument for
continuity
– Other species are mentally as well as physically similar to humans
– Difference in the mental capacity of animals and humans as a difference of
degree rather than kind
– Clever animals: George Romanes’ had anecdotal examples in Animal
Intelligence
– Modern versions of clever animals
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this clever dogs
or this really clever dog
0r this truly amazing dog
Do you know about Clever Hans?
– Anecdotal method of Romanes was lacking in objectivity and reliability
– Guilty of anthropomorphism
• interpreting the behaviour of other species as if they were human.
• stimulated a backlash by Thorndike and Morgan which is still prevalent today
Controversy over studies of comparative cognition
• Recent research showing human-like abilities in other species:
– There is a tendency to use anthropomorphic interpretations for
• episodic memory
• manufacture and use of tools
• theory of mind
– Contemporary research in psychology is moving toward explaining human
behavior
• as responses to simple cues
• Innate responses or predispositions
– do not need to explain all of human behavior with intuition
• preference for immediacy in choice behavior
• spatial cognition as “cognitive maps”
Controversy over studies of comparative cognition
• Using basic explanations may seem like ‘killjoy’ explanations
(Shettleworth 2010)
– behaviors such as communicating, using tools, solving novel problems
• behaviors that seem to require human-like thought
• Can be explained by associative learning and species-typical predispositions
• Is this denial of mental continuity between humans and other
animals?
• Complexities arise out of simplicity as seen in social insects such as
termite nest, honeybee hives and ant colonies.
– simple, unconscious mechanisms that explain much animal behavior
– When these simple mechanisms are numerous and organized they can
produce complex behavior
History of Studies in Comparative Cognition
• Interest in animal cognition "intelligence" using learning studies
was the foundation of learning psychology
• Behaviorism mostly in United States
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Thorndike's puzzle box
John B. Watson
B.F. Skinner
However, Behaviorism ignored natural selection’s ability to create nichespecific minds designed to solve particular intellectual challenges.
– Explaining classical conditioning effects as S-R associations without cognitive
processing is incomplete
– Internal representation of stimuli used as CS produce expectations of a
particular US.
– A rat trained with tone – food is surprised by tone -- no food
History of Studies in Comparative Cognition
• Ethology In mainland Europe
– concentrated on behavior in natural situations, tending to describe it as
instinctive
• Nikolaas Tinbergen
• Konrad Lorenz
• Karl von Frisch
– animals generally respond to innate ‘sign stimuli’ with ‘fixed-action patterns’
– However, Like Behaviorists, most ethologists saw animals as mindless
machines
Studies in Comparative Cognition
• The Behaviorist contention that animals are mindless learning
machines cannot explain four important research findings.
– Wolfgang Köhler in 1915–17 reported numerous examples of spontaneous
problem solving by chimpanzees
– Edward C. Tolman (1940's) demonstrated that rats can solve a maze problem
with a ‘cognitive map’
– John Garcia (1966)discovered rapid food-avoidance conditioning
– David Olton (1976) used eight-arm radial mazes create mental maps of the
maze as they explore it, and can refer back to these unreinforced experiences
days later.
• Renewed interest in Comparative Cognition is a more recent
development
– Hulse (1978) Cognitive Processes in Animal Behavior an edited volume of
fourteen chapters seen as the beginning of the comparative cognition
resurgence
Cognitive Ethology
– Influenced by Donald Griffin's book "The Question of Animal Awareness" 1976
• original focus by Griffin was on consciousness
– Combination of cognitive science and classical ethology
• For example: many social animals engage in social play
– Requires communication, role playing, cooperation and the ability to
understand intentions
• Dog play behavior "bow"
– As a signal before play behavior “chasing” that can be misinterpreted
– Emphasizes observing animals under more-or-less natural conditions
• with the objective of understanding species-specific behavioral repertoire
– Relies on anecdote and anthropomorphism to inform and to motivate more
rigorous study
– Using experimental control is a problem
• placing and maintaining individuals in captivity
• getting them accustomed to test situations that may be unnatural
• For example, this video of smart crows and video of even smarter crows
Argument for cognitive approach
• Cognitive concepts such as mental representations, expectations and
relationship between stimuli all help explain behavior
– R - O associations
• specific associations between a response and outcome (usually a food reward)
• indicates that some mental representation of food item related to a particular
response
– Communication with Alarm calling specific for type of predator
• different call for large ground predators like cats versus flying predators such as eagles
– Use of deception to prevent other individuals in your group from getting your
food
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is this just an S – R association?
or does it include cognition such as intention?
Difficult to design experiments that separate S - R from intention
An example from "Ape Genius" video, go to minute 40
• Animals can form mental representations of abstract properties of stimuli
and the relations among stimuli
• The cognitive differences between humans and other species are unclear
• understanding nonhuman animal cognition can help explain human
cognitive development
Basic Assumptions of Comparative Cognition Studies
• Animals have internal “mental” representations of stimuli from
their environment.
– A mental representation is a system of symbols, conscious or unconscious,
that are isomorphic to some aspect of the environment
– used to make behavior-generating decisions that anticipate events and
relations in that environment
• Animals encode, store, combine and transform representational
information which is used to guide behavior.
• These internal representations are theoretical constructs which are
inferred from behavior.
• Use internal representations to explain behavior that can not be
completely explained by S-R R-O or reflex mechanisms.
• For example “context” as an internal representation of a place.
Why study animal cognition?
• To understand the role of nature and nurture in complex, cognitive
behaviors
• Cognition and language do not fossilize
– Use same comparative method as Darwin
– Did particular components of cognition evolve just for humans and thus are
unique to humans
• To understand how behaviours necessary for the survival and
reproductive success of a species are dependent upon specific
kinds of cognitive processes.
• Application to health and safety issues
– Using comparative cognition in health research
• determining effects of exposure to neurotoxins, such as lead, methyl mercury,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on cognition
– developmental profiles of mammals are similar to human development
• operant battery test
– money reinforcement operant tests of motivation
– color and position discrimination
• Radial Arm Maze which is covered on page 318 of the Domjan textbook