Block 3 - Animal learning and cognition - Lecture 1 - Historical background

Question 1

Darwin - natural selection?

Answer 1

• there is variability among individuals in a population
• variability is hereditary
• there is competition among individuals for resources
• the survivors of the competition will reproduce

Question 2

Romanes - animal intelligence?

Answer 2

• gave e.g. of empathy in ants and other insects
• ‘they act with rational imitation’

Question 3

Conway Lloyd Morgan?

Answer 3

• against anthropomorphism = tendency to see animal behaviour as a result of human like motivations
• his canon (rule) = in no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of one which stands lower in the psychological scale
• believed animals used trial and error learning

Question 4

Thorndike - law of effect?

Answer 4

• studied cats in puzzle boxes
• believed that if a response leads to a satisfying outcome it will be strengthened
• the animal is strengthening the association between the stimulus and the response

Question 5

Watson?

Answer 5

• advocated:
  -> importance of learning
  -> behaviourism
  -> use of animals as believed learning was a non conscious process
• against introspection as you can’t observe it
• tabula rasa = everyone is the same it depends on the environment