Comparative Approaches to Cognition: Knowing (Other) Animal Minds

 

Roger K. R. Thompson

Franklin & Marshall College, USA

 

Abstract:  A comparative overview of recent advances in the study of animal cognition and their implications for theory and method in cognitive science. What is that prompts us to attribute or deny mindfulness to other animate beings? Under what circumstances - and why - are we willing to attribute, intelligence, intentionality, mental states, reasoning, language and personal autonomy to other animals? Are we humans alone in these and other cognitive capacities such as self-awareness? How might we know?

 

Session Topics & Recommended Readings:

 

Day 1. Why comparative animal cognition is important: Contrasting approaches to fundamental issues, problems & fallacies in an anthropocentric cognitive science.

 

      Roitblat H. L. (1995). Comparative approaches to cognitive science. In H. L. Roitblat & J-A. Meyer, (eds.), Comparative approaches to cognitive science. (pp. 13-26). Cambridge, MA: Bradford, MIT Press.

 

      Shettleworth, S. J. (2009). The evolution of comparative cognition: Is the snark still a boojum? Behavioural Processes, 80, 210-217.

 

      Wasserman, E. A., & Zentall, T. R. (2006). Comparative cognition: A natural science approach to the study of animal intelligence. In E. A. Wasserman & T. R. Zentall, (eds.), Cognitive Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence, (pp. 3-11). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

 

Day 2. Representation and Remembrance: From reflexive and associative action to mental “Time-travelling”.

 

Clayton, N. S., Emery, N. J., & Dickinson, A. (2006). The prospective cognition of food caching and recovery by Western Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma californica). Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 1, 1-11. Retrieved from http://psyc.queensu.ca/ccbr/index.html

 

      Roitblat , H. L., & von Fersen, L. (1992). Comparative cognition: Representations and processes in learning & memory. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter, (eds.), Annual Review of Psychology, 43, 671-710.

 

      Vauclair, J. (1997). Mental states in animals: Cognitive ethology. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1, 35-39.

 

Day 3. Natural and relational concepts: From features & categories to abstract relations-between-relations.

 

Bluff, L. A., Weir, A. A. S., Rutz, C., Wimpenny, J. H., & Kacelnik, A. (2007). Tool-related cognition in New Caledonian crows. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 1-25. Retrieved from http://psyc.queensu.ca/ccbr/index.html

 

Katz, J. S., Wright, A. A., & Bodily, K. D. (2007). Issues in the comparative cognition of abstract-concept learning. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 79-92. Retrieved from http://psyc.queensu.ca/ccbr/index.html

 

Zentall, T. R., Wasserman, E. A., Lazareva, O. F., Thompson, R. R. K., Ratterman, M. J. (2008). Concept Learning in Animals. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 3, 13-45. Retrieved from http://psyc.queensu.ca/ccbr/index.html

 

      Visalberghi, E., & Limongelli, L. (1994). Lack of comprehension of cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108, 15-22.

 

4. Intentionality, self-awareness and theory of mind: Good intentions aside, do we really need a theory of mind?

 

      Gallup, G. G., Jr., Anderson, J. R., & Shillito, D. J. (2002)). The mirror test. In Bekoff, M., Allen, C. & Burghardt, G. M. (eds.), The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition, (pp 325-333). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,     

 

Heyes, C., & Dickinson, A. (1990). The intentionality of animal action. Mind & Language, 5, 87-104.

 

      Pepperberg, I. M. Garcia, S. E., Jackson, E. C., & Marconi, S (1995). Mirror use by African Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 109, 182-195.

 

      Plotnik, J. M., de Waal, F.B. M., & Reiss, D. (2006). Self-recognition in an Asian elephant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 17053-17057.

 

      Thompson, R. K. R. & Contie, C. L. (1994). Further reflections on mirror-usage by pigeons: Lessons from Winnie the Pooh and Pinocchio too. In S. Parker, M. Boccia, & R. Mitchell (eds.), Self-awareness in animals and humans. (pp. 392-409). New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.

 

Day 5. Social Cognition, natural communication & language:

 

      Cheney, D., Seyfarth, R., & Smuts, B. (1986). Social relationships and social cognition in nonhuman primates. Science, 234, 1361-1366.

 

      Povinelli, D. J., & Preuss, T. M. (1995). Theory of mind: Evolutionary history of a cognitive specialization. Trends in Neurosciences, 18, 418-424.

 

      Whiten, A. (2002). From the field to the laboratory and back again: Culture and “social mind” in primates. In Bekoff, M., Allen, C. & Burghardt, G. M. (eds.), The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition, (pp 385-392). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 

Wynne, C. D. L. (2001). Communication and language. In C. D. L. Wynne, Animal Cognition, (cht. 2) pp: 161-179. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Seminars

During the seminars experimental studies will be presented  and critically discussed. Video and web-based materials will supplement Readings

 

Assessment

Students will be assessed on the basis of a written paper (about 1500 words) that critically addresses a theoretical issue in contemporary comparative cognition or, alternatively, is a proposal for an empirical experimental or field study on a topic in comparative cognition.

 

Roger Thompson 

Franklin & Marshall College, USA

Dr. Roger Thompson is the Dr. E. Paul and Frances H. Reiff Professor of Biological Sciences and Schnader House Don at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster PA (USA) where he is a member of the Psychology Department, Chairperson of the Biological Foundations of Behavior Program, and Director of the F&M Primate Center.

Prof. Thompson received his undergraduate and Masters (Hons.) degrees in Psychology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and completed his doctoral degree in Psychology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he studied sensory and memory processes in bottle-nosed dolphins.

 

Prof. Thompson’s primary research and teaching interests lie in the comparative analysis of cognition – which -in their quest for understanding “other” animal minds - his colleagues, students, and he have explored in chimpanzees, old- and new- world monkeys, human infants, and our bipedal ‘cousins’– birds.