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Prepared as a tribute to Donald A. Riley, the essays that appear
here are representative of a research area that has loosely been
classified as animal cognition -- a categorization that reflects a
functionalist philosophy that was prevalent in Riley's laboratory
and that many of his students absorbed. According to this
philosophy, it is acceptable to hypothesize that an animal might
engage in complex processing of information, as long as one can
operationalize evidence for such a process and the hypothesis can
be presented in the context of testable predictions that can
differentiate it from other mechanisms. The contributions to this
volume represent the three most important areas of research in
animal cognition -- stimulus representation, memory processes, and
perceptual processes -- although current research has considerably
blurred these distinctions.
First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
Prepared as a tribute to Donald A. Riley, the essays that appear
here are representative of a research area that has loosely been
classified as animal cognition -- a categorization that reflects a
functionalist philosophy that was prevalent in Riley's laboratory
and that many of his students absorbed. According to this
philosophy, it is acceptable to hypothesize that an animal might
engage in complex processing of information, as long as one can
operationalize evidence for such a process and the hypothesis can
be presented in the context of testable predictions that can
differentiate it from other mechanisms. The contributions to this
volume represent the three most important areas of research in
animal cognition -- stimulus representation, memory processes, and
perceptual processes -- although current research has considerably
blurred these distinctions.
Decision making cuts across most areas of intellectual enquiry and
academic endeavor. The classical view of individual human thinkers
choosing among options remains important and instructive, but the
contributors to this volume broaden this perspective to
characterize the decision making behavior of groups, non-human
organisms and even non-living objects and mathematical constructs.
A diverse array of methods is brought to bear-mathematical,
computational, subjective, neurobiological, evolutionary, and
cultural. We can often identify best or optimal decisions and
decision making processes, but observed responses may deviate
markedly from these, to a large extent because the environment in
which decisions must be made is constantly changing. Moreover,
decision making can be highly constrained by institutions, natural
and social context, and capabilities. Studies of the mechanisms
underlying decisions by humans and other organisms are just
beginning to gain traction and shape our thinking. Though decision
making has fundamental similarities across the diverse array of
entities considered to be making them, there are large differences
of degree (if not kind) that relate to the question of human
uniqueness. From this survey of views and approaches, we converge
on a tentative agenda for accelerating development of a new field
that includes advancing the dialog between the sciences and the
humanities, developing a defensible classification scheme for
decision making and decision makers, addressing the role of
morality and justice, and moving advances into applications-the
rapidly developing field of decision support.
In the past decade, the field of comparative cognition has grown
and thrived. No less rigorous than purely behavioristic
investigations, examinations of animal intelligence are useful for
scientists and psychologists alike in their quest to understand the
nature and mechanisms of intelligence. Extensive field research of
various species has yielded exciting new areas of research,
integrating findings from psychology, behavioral ecology, and
ethology in a unique and wide-ranging synthesis of theory and
research on animal cognition. This updated edition of The Oxford
Handbook of Comparative Cognition contains sections on perception
and illusion, attention and search, memory processes, spatial
cognition, conceptualization and categorization, problem solving
and behavioral flexibility, and social cognition processes. The
authors have incorporated new findings and new theoretical
approaches that reflect the current state of the field, including
findings in primate tool usage, pattern learning, and counting.
This comprehensive volume will be a must-read for students and
scientists who are curious about the state the modern science of
comparative cognition.
In 1978, Hulse, Fowler, and Honig published Cognitive Processes in
Animal Behavior, an edited volume that was a landmark in the
scientific study of animal intelligence. It liberated interest in
complex learning and cognition from the grasp of the rigid
theoretical structures of behaviorism that had prevailed during the
previous four decades, and as a result, the field of comparative
cognition was born. At long last, the study of the cognitive
capacities of animals other than humans emerged as a worthwhile
scientific enterprise. No less rigorous than purely behavioristic
investigations, studies of animal intelligence spanned such
wide-ranging topics as perception, spatial learning and memory,
timing and numerical competence, categorization and
conceptualization, problem solving, rule learning, and creativity.
During the ensuing 25 years, the field of comparative cognition has
thrived and grown, and public interest in it has risen to
unprecedented levels. In their quest to understand the nature and
mechanisms of intelligence, researchers have studied animals from
bees to chimpanzees. Sessions on comparative cognition have become
common at meetings of the major societies for psychology and
neuroscience, and in fact, research in comparative cognition has
increased so much that a separate society, the Comparative
Cognition Society, has been formed to bring it together. This
volume celebrates comparative cognition's first quarter century
with a state-of-the-art collection of chapters covering the broad
realm of the scientific study of animal intelligence. Comparative
Cognition will be an invaluable resource for students and
professional researchers in all areas of psychology and
neuroscience.
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