“ANIMAL COGNITION

Animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, is the title given

to a modern approach to the mental capacities of non
human animals.

 It has developed out of comparative psychology,

but has also been strongly influenced by the
approach of ethology, behavioral ecology, and
evolutionary psychology.
 Much of what used to be considered under the title
of animal intelligence is now thought of under this
heading.
 Animal language acquisition, attempting to discern or understand the degree to which
animal cognistics can be revealed by linguistics-related study, has been controversial
among cognitive linguists “

“HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Morgan's Canon

Coined by 19th-century British psychologist C. Lloyd Morgan, Morgan's Canon remains a

fundamental precept of comparative (animal) psychology. In its developed form, it states that:

 In no case is an animal activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological

processes if it can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the
scale of psychological evolution and development.

 In other words, Morgan believed that anthropomorphic approaches to animal behavior

were fallacious, and that people should only consider behaviour as, for example, rational,
purposive or affectionate, if there is no other explanation in terms of the behaviours of
more primitive life-forms to which we do not attribute those faculties.”
“From anecdote to laboratory

The behavior of non-human animals has captivated human imagination from antiquity, and over
the centuries many writers have speculated about the animal mind, or its absence. Speculation
about animal intelligence gradually yielded to scientific study after Darwin placed humans and
animals on a continuum, although Darwin's largely anecdotal approach to the topic would not
pass scientific muster later on. Unsatisfied with the anecdotal method of Darwin and his protégé
J. G. Romanes, “

Fig:animal intelligence

“THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION

Beginning around 1960, a "cognitive revolution" in research on humans gradually spurred a

similar transformation of research with animals. Inference to processes not directly observable
became acceptable and then commonplace. An important proponent of this shift in thinking
was Donald O. Hebb, who argued that "mind" is simply a name for processes in the head that
control complex behavior, and that it is both necessary and possible to infer those processes from
behavior. Animals came to be seen as "goal seeking agents that acquire, store, retrieve, and
internally process information at many levels of cognitive complexity". ‘’

“COGNITIVE CAPACITIES
The physical world poses a number of problems for animals to solve. On a daily basis, animals
must find food, avoid predators, and seek shelter. Solving these problems requires cognitive
capacities. Cognition involves processing information, from sensing the environment to making
decisions based on available information. Such cognitive capacities include, among others, the
ability to navigate through space, account for the passage of time, determine quantity, and
remember events and locations. “

“Where am I?
Most animal species move about in their habitat, which requires navigating between locations.
Navigation occurs over different spatial scales, from centimetres to thousands of kilometres, and
different mechanisms are used at different scales. At small scales, in which animals navigate
around their home territory, they can use dead reckoning, landmarks, and cognitive maps to
navigate.

Dead reckoning involves estimating the distance and direction one has traveled. For instance,
desert ants (Cataglyphis spp.) track how far away and in what direction they have traveled from
home in order to return home after searching for food “

Fig: Ants use dead reckoning to locate their nests after convoluted foraging trips.”

“Other species use landmarks to guide their movement. Animals can learn the relationships
among landmarks such as rocks, trees, or other large objects to triangulate their position. “
“Landmarks are often the primary cues that animals use to locate their nests.

Fig:In Tinbergen's (1951) experiments, digger wasps were unable to locate their nest entrances
after he moved the landmarks surrounding the nests.”

“SPATIAL COGNITION

Whether an animal ranges over a territory measured in square kilometers or square meters, its
survival typically depends on its ability to do such things as find a food source and then return to
its nest. Sometimes such a task can be performed rather simply, for example by following a
chemical trail. Typically, however, the animal must
somehow acquire and use information about
locations, directions, and distances. The following
paragraphs outline some of the ways that animals
do this. “

 Beacons

“ Animals often learn what their nest or other goal

looks like, and if it is within sight they may simply
move toward it; it is said to serve as a "beacon".”
 “Landmarks

When an animal is unable to see its goal, it may learn the appearance of nearby objects and
use these landmarks as guides. Researchers working with birds and bees have demonstrated
this by moving prominent objects in the vicinity of nest sites, causing returning foragers to
hunt for their nest in a new location.”

 “Dead reckoning,

also known as "path integration," is the process of computing one's position by starting from
a known location and keeping track of the distances and directions subsequently traveled.
Classic experiments have shown that the desert ant keeps track of its position in this way as
it wanders for many meters searching for food. Though it travels in a randomly twisted path,
it heads straight home when it finds food. However, if the ant is picked up and released some
meters to the east, for example, it heads for a location displaced by the same amount to the
east of its home nest.”
“DEFINING INTELLIGENCE

Humans are very intelligent, this we know. The most intelligent of all animals on Earth, at least
by the ways we measure intelligence. The
more we learn about other animals'
intelligence, and the more we try to define
intelligence even among humans, the more we
are amazed and befuddled by it! Human
intelligence is generally measured by IQ,
or intelligence quotient. This is measured by
taking a series of tests. But, how do you make
animals take IQ tests, so that we can measure
their intelligence? We really can't, though we
can measure their intelligence in other ways. “

“Fig:Brain size is just one metric of measuring intelligence in animals.”

“Examples of Highly Intelligent Animals

Based on the metrics for measuring intelligence

that we just described, particularly brain size,
many animals come close to human intelligence.
They include:

 Cetaceans, such as dolphins and whales

 Other high-order primates, such as

chimpanzees and gorillas

 Elephants

Fig: dolphin intelligent animal

These are all large, complex mammals that we humans share a pretty significant genetic kinship
with. However, brain size isn't necessarily everything. Animal behaviorists have also identified
smaller, less complex species that exhibit high intelligence based on a more general definition of
complexity and problem solving. They include:”

o “Bees and ants, for their complex and dynamic social structures

o Crows and ravens, for their incredible problem solving and social cohesion

o The octopus, for their keen and often cheeky problem-solving skills”

Bees are intelligent on basis of their complex social behaviors.

 \.

“DEMONSTRATING INTELLIGENCE

 Animal behaviorists can put several of these animal species through a series of tests to
gauge their intelligence. Rats, for example, are put through mazes and obstacles in
various orders and sequences, repeatedly, to see how well they remember how to
navigate.

 A study on New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) revealed that they not only
engage in tool usage, but also in tool modification, bending and changing twigs used to
reach for insects inside tree and rock cracks.

 Tool modification is a particularly stunning example of intelligence, demonstrating their

capacity for forethought. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops trancatus) have displayed
basic language comprehension by differentiating the order of words in commands given
by their trainers, and have demonstrated self-recognition in mirror tests”

 “Other primates can interpret and even use human languages too; a particularly famous
gorilla named Koko was successfully taught American Sign Language, and uses it to
communicate back to her handlers!”

“ Fig: A bonobo uses a tool to collect insects..”

“LONG-DISTANCE NAVIGATION; HOMING

Many animals travel hundreds or thousands of miles in seasonal migrations or returns to

breeding grounds. They may be guided by the sun, the stars, the polarization of light, magnetic
cues, olfactory cues, winds, or a combination of these. This extensive area of research is covered
in the main article on Animal navigation”.

“It has been hypothesized that animals such as apes and wolves are good at spatial cognition
because this skill is necessary for survival. Some researchers argue that this ability may have
diminished somewhat in dogs because humans have provided necessities such as food and
shelter during some 15,000 years of domestication. “

“TIMING

The behavior of most animals is synchronized with the earth's daily light-dark cycle. Thus, many
animals are active during the day, others are active at night, still others near dawn and dusk.
Though one might think that these "circadian rhythms" are controlled simply by the presence or
absence of light, nearly every animal that has been studied has been shown to have a "biological
clock" that yields cycles of activity even when the animal is in constant illumination or
darkness. Circadian rhythms are so automatic and fundamental to living things – they occur even
in plants] – that they are usually discussed separately from cognitive processes, and the reader is
referred to the main article (Circadian rhythms) for further information. “

“TOOL AND WEAPON USE

Although tool use was long assumed to be a uniquely human trait, there is now much evidence
that many animals use tools, including mammals, birds, fish, cephalopods and insects.
Discussions of tool use often involve a debate about what constitutes a "tool", and they often
consider the relation of tool use to the animal's intelligence and brain size.

MAMMALS
Series of photographs showing a bonobo fishing for termites.”
 “ A bonobo inserting a stick into a termite mound.”

“ The bonobo starts "fishing" for the termites.”

“ The bonobo withdraws the stick and begins eating the termites.”

“ The bonobo eats the termites extracted with the tool.”

“Tool use has been reported many times in both wild and captive primates, particularly the great
apes. The use of tools by primates is varied and includes hunting (mammals, invertebrates, fish),
collecting honey, processing food (nuts, fruits, vegetables and seeds), collecting water, weapons
and shelter..”

“BIRDS

Several species of birds have been observed to use tools in the wild, including warblers, parrots,
Egyptian vultures, brown-headed nuthatches, gulls and owls. Some species, such as
the woodpecker finch of the Galapagos Islands, use particular tools as an essential part of
their foragingbehavior. However, these behaviors are often quite inflexible and cannot be applied
effectively in new situations

Several species of corvids have been trained to use tools in controlled experiments. One species
examined extensively under laboratory conditions is the New Caledonian crow. One individual
called “Betty” spontaneously made a wire tool to solve a novel problem. She was being tested to
see whether she would select a wire hook rather than a straight wire to pull a little bucket of meat
out of a well. “

Fig:fhsgfig:Birds cognition
“FISH

Several species of wrasses have been

observed using rocks as anvils to
crack bivalve (scallops, urchins and clams)
shells. This behavior was first filmed in an
orange-dotted tuskfish (Choerodon
anchorago) in 2009 by Giacomo Bernardi.
The fish fans sand to unearth the bivalve,
takes it into its mouth, swims several meters
to a rock, which it then uses as an anvil by
smashing the mollusc apart with sideward thrashes of the head. This behaviour has also been
recorded in a blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii) on Australia's Great Barrier Reef,
yellowhead wrasse (Halichoeres garnoti) in Florida and a six-bar wrasse (Thalassoma
hardwicke) in an aquarium setting. These species are at opposite ends of the phylogenetic tree in
this family, so this behaviour may be a deep-seated trait in all wrasses. “

“REASONING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

It is clear that animals of quite a range of species are capable of solving problems that appear to
require abstract reasoning; Wolfgang Köhler's (1917) work with chimpanzees is a famous early
example. He observed that chimpanzees did not use trial and error to solve problems such as
retrieving bananas hung out of reach.

Instead, they behaved in a manner that was "unwaveringly purposeful," spontaneously placing
boxes so that they could climb to reach the fruit.] Modern research has identified similar behavior
in animals usually thought of as much less intelligent, if appropriate pre-training is given. Causal
reasoning has also been observed in rooks and New Caledonian crows. “

“LANGUAGE
Animal language and Human-animal communication”
“The modeling of human language in animals is known as animal language research. In addition
to the ape-language experiments mentioned above, there have also been more or less successful
attempts to teach language or language-like behavior to some non-primate species,
including parrots and great spotted woodpeckers. Arguing from his own results with the
animal Nim Chimpsky and his analysis of others results, Herbert Terrace criticized the idea that
chimps can produce new “

“INSIGHT

Wolfgang Köhler is usually credited with introducing the concept of insight into experimental
psychology. Working with chimpanzees, Köhler came to dispute Edward Thorndike's theory that
animals must solve problems gradually, by trial and error. He said that Thorndike's animals
could only use trial and error because the situation precluded other forms of problem solving. He
provided chimps with a relatively unstructured situation, and he observed sudden "ah-
ha!" insightful changes of behavior, as, for example, when a chimp suddenly moved a box into
position so that it could retrieve a banana. More recently, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus)
were shown to exhibit similar insightful problem solving. A male was observed moving a box to
a position where it could be stood upon to reach food that had been deliberately hung out of
reach.””

“NUMERACY
Number sense in animals

A variety of studies indicates that animals are able to use and communicate quantitative
information, and that some can count in a rudimentary way. Some examples of this research
follow.”

 “In one study, rhesus monkeys viewed visual displays containing, for example, 1, 2, 3, or
4 items of different sorts. They were trained to respond to them in several ways involving
numerical ordering, for example touching "1" first, "2" second and so on. When tested
with displays containing items they had never seen before, they continued to respond to
them in order. The authors conclude that monkeys can represent the numerosities 1 to 9 at
least on an ordinal scale”

 “Ants are able to use quantitative values and transmit this information”
  “Western lowland gorillas given the choice between two food trays demonstrated the
ability to choose the tray with more food items at a rate higher than chance after
training. In a similar task, chimpanzees chose the option with the larger amount of
food. Salamanders given a choice between two displays with differing amounts of fruit
flies, used as a food reward, reliably choose the display with more flies, as shown in a
particular experiment. “

 “Monitor lizards have been shown to be capable of numeracy, and some species can
distinguish among numbers up to six”

“BIOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS

Fig:Hedgehogs instinctively roll into a ball when threatened, making them unsuitable for
studies on aversion avoidance”

“Animals differ widely in many learning and cognitive tasks in ways that reflect their
evolutionary history and their instinctual behaviors in natural environments. For example, dogs
and rats easily learn to avoid an electric shock from the floor by moving to another part of the
experimental chamber when they hear a tone preceding the shock; this is an appropriate response
to a dangerous situation. However, hedgehogs fail to learn this avoidance behavior. “

Refrences
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