Key issues in Animal Cognition

Question 1

Anthropomorphism

Answer 1

attributing human characteristics to animals

Question 2

Anthropocentrism

Answer 2

viewing animals from our own, human, perspective (How we study)

Question 3

George Romanes

Answer 3

• Mr. Stephen Harding sends me the following as an observation of his own :
  On the 15th ult. (Nov. 1879) I saw an intelligent sow pig about twelve months old, running in an orchard, going to a young apple tree and shaking it, pricking up her ears at the same time, as if to listen to hear the apples fall. She then picked the apples up and ate them. After they were all down she shook the tree again and listened, but as there were no more to fall she went away.

Question 4

Conwy Lloyd Morgan

Answer 4

Argues against Romanes and urged experiments

• “In this case the lifting of the latch was unquestionably hit on by accident, and the trick was only rendered habitual by repeated association in the same situation of the chance act and the happy escape.”

Question 5

Lloyd Morgan’s canon

Answer 5

• “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 the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.”
• Find the simplest explanation

Question 6

Tinbergen 1963 4 questions

Answer 6

• Function
  Adaptive purpose of behaviour
  
  • Phylogeny (evolution)
    How behaviour varies between more or less related species
  • Ontology (development)
    Behaviour across lifetime and learning
    
    • Mechanism
      How it occurs in the brain

Question 7

Nakajima, Arimitsu & Lattal (2002)

Answer 7

• A study of American and Japanese univeristy students’ perceptions of animal intelligence

Perceptions generally correspond to the phylogenetic scale

Sequence of organisms ordered in terms of complexity. E.g. Mammals more similar to humans so higher on scale than invertebrates .

Scale not correct way to view evolution. No species is more evolved than another

Question 8

How can we compare?

Answer 8

Brain size
* Issue :( Heavier animals have heavier brains
* Measure of brain size that takes into account body mass

Look at neurons in cortex and see if this relates to cognition - evidence of correlation
- Biological measure

Question 9

What can be measured? (Pearce, 2008)

Answer 9

Measure how many rewards needed until criterion reached
Shows how fast animal learns something
Rats and humans take more - indicates slower at learning, doesn’t fit with idea of K index

Bees and quail don’t need many rewards before meeting criteria

Question 10

Issues with comparison

Answer 10

Learning with some stimuli seems easier than other stimuli e.g easy for rat to learn to press a lever for food but not press a lever to avoid shock

Contextual factors - sensory, motivational and motor processes that influence learning

Question 11

Solution for issues when comparing

Answer 11

Bitterman: systematic variation
Training on a task across a range of conditions (different stimuli, reward size, hunger levels etc.)

However, difficult to implement because of time, number of subjects and facilities

Question 12

Clever Hans

Answer 12

Hans gave proper responses without looking at persons or the objects (involuntary without knowledge external signs)

Hans was responding to external signs
Presence of experimenters is important to think about in animal studies

Experimenter should not be sensed or should be blind to answers

Question 13

Uses of smell

Answer 13

Survival: Find food, avoid predators, finding home

Communication: attracting mates, recognising

Question 14

Vision: colour

Answer 14

• Humans have 3 colour receptors (blue, green, red)
• (Most?) other species can see more of the spectrum than humans
• Bees: green, blue, ultraviolet (see Hempel de Ibarra, Vorobyev, & Menzel, 2014)
• Birds: e.g., blue tits perceive UV
  
  • (Hunt et al., 1998),
  • pigeons have >6 colour receptors

Question 15

Dogs and smell

Answer 15

• Can identify an individual odour in mixtures of odours (< 11 odours in a mixture with 100% success).
• Detection of illegal substances, food, explosives, disease (cancer; Jezierski, Walczak, & Gorecka, 2009; COVID; Jendrny et al., 2020)

Question 16

Magnetic sensitivity

Answer 16

• Many animals have shown to be sensitive to magnetic fields: pigeons, bats, migrating fish, bees, ants, cattle, sea turtles
• Sea turtles (Lohmann et al., 2004)
  
  • Turtles can distinguish different locations by the magnetic field

Question 17

What conclusions can be drawn from the Clever Hans story?

Answer 17

We should check methodology of studies to ensure “Clever Hans effects” are not present

Question 18

Animals’ different perceptual abilities suggests what?

Answer 18

Perceptual abilities are adaptations to the animals’ environment

Question 19

You watch a cat pressing a bell. It presses the bell very consistently. What would you say the underlying mechanism is for this behaviour?

Answer 19

Operant conditioning

Question 20

what is the cephalisation index (K)?

Answer 20

size of brain relative to body size

Question 21

higher values of cephalisation index (K) mean..

Answer 21

an animal has a larger than average brain for body size

Question 22

what are some issues with using the cephalisation index (K) to measure animal intelligence?

Answer 22

• some animals benefit from a smaller body size (flying)
• does not matter how large brain and body are for animals living in water

Question 23

what is an alternative to using the cephalisation index (K) to measure animal intelligence?

Answer 23

counting number of neurons in the cortex as an indication of cognitive capability

Question 24

what colour receptors do bees have? (Hempel. de Ibarra, 2014)

Answer 24

green
- blue
- ultraviolet

Question 25

what is magnetic sensitivity?(Lohmann et al., 2004)

Answer 25

many animals have shown to be sensitive to magnetic fields: pigeons, bats, migrating fish, bees, ants, cattle, sea turtles