by Donald Blough,
Brown University
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Blough, D. (2007). In Memory of Eric Heinemann. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 155. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.200014
by Clive D. L. Wynne,
University of Florida
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Arguing about names for things is fun, and arguments about history are captivating and educational, but, if there is one thing all four commentaries and I can agree on, it is that what really matters is how best to move a scientific field forward.
Wyne, C. D. L. (2007). Anthropomorphism and its Discontents. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 151-154. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20013
by Grant Goodrich,
Indiana University
Colin Allen,
Indiana University
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How should scientists react to anthropomorphism (defined for the purposes of this paper as the attribution of mental states or properties to nonhuman animals)? Many thoughtful scientists have attempted to accommodate some measure of anthropomorphism in their approaches to animal behavior. But Wynne will have none of it. We reject his argument against anthropomorphism and argue that he does not pay sufficient attention to the historical facts or to the details of alternative approaches.
Goodrich, G., Allen, C. (2007). Conditioned Anti-anthropomorphism. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 147-150. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20012
by Mark S. Blumberg,
University of Iowa
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The psychological literature today is awash in ungrounded concepts and methods. Although our more sophisticated colleagues are careful to operationalize their concepts (e.g., fear), others use the same concepts with reckless abandon, constructing conceptual edifices on the weakest of foundations. For such theorists, it sometimes seems that evidence has become an inconvenience. One can almost hear them exclaiming: “Evidence be damned. We have minds to explore!”
Blumberg, M. S. (2007). Anthropomorphism and Evidence. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 145-146. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20011
by William Timberlake,
Indiana University
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The MIT scientist Donald Griffin, widely-recognized for his experimental confirmation that bats use echo location in tracking insects and avoiding obstacles in the dark (Griffin, 1958/1974), later wrote widely defending the view that other animals are consciously aware and intelligent, like humans (Griffin, 1976, 2001). Based on the assumption that an example of possible human-like cleverness in another animal species establishes the presence of both consciousness and intelligence, Griffin extended the continuum of human-like consciousness to many other species. For example, Griffin believed the assassin bug was conscious and intelligent because it could be viewed as disguising itself (by sticking the drained bodies of prey on its exoskeleton) before lying in wait for new victims. Griffin’s focus on the anthropomorphic inference of presumed intentional cleverness in other animals provided an important impetus for similar inference of human-like animal consciousness in areas ranging from cognitive ethology to animal personality.
Timberlake, W. (2007). Anthropomorphism Revisited. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 139-144. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20010
by Gordon M. Burghardt,
University of Tennessee
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The main title of Clive Wynne’s essay poses the question: “What are animals?” My initial thought was that the second part of the title, “Why anthropomorphism is still not a scientific approach to behavior,” should be the sole title, since a screed against anthropomorphism seems the main point of the paper. But, upon further reflection I now see that Wynne is questioning what type of animals we are, what kinds of behavior and underlying processes we share with other creatures, and how we should go about finding out about these similarities. Good questions, uncritical answers.
Burghardt, G. M. (2007). Critical Anthropomorphism, Uncritical Anthropocentrism, and Naïve Nominalism. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 136-138. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20009
by Clive D. L. Wynne,
University of Florida
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Before Darwin, the relationship of humans to the rest of creation was straightforward. Animals had instincts and habits: humans were blessed with rationality and language. Darwin’s recognition of the interrelatedness of all living things made this position untenable. Around the time of the publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, people began to use the term “anthropomorphism” to describe the attribution of human qualities to nonhuman animals. The rise of Behaviorism (e.g., Watson, 1913) led to a concentration on observable phenomena and treated ‘anthropomorphism’ only in a pejorative sense. Ethology, which arose in the 1930s, shared the Behaviorists’ distaste for anthropomorphic and mentalistic explanations (e.g., Tinbergen, 1951). This reticence was punctured by Griffin in 1976. Griffin argued that all animal species are consciously aware and consequently, anthropomorphism is an entirely appropriate way of thinking about animals. Several contemporary authors have attempted to ‘tame’ anthropomorphism into a respectable branch of psychology. Burghardt (1991) coined the term “critical anthropomorphism” to distinguish the inevitable (“naïve”) anthropomorphic impulses that human beings uncritically bring to other species, from a sophisticated anthropomorphism. This latter type of anthropomorphism uses the assumption that animals have private experiences as an “heuristic method to formulate research agendas that result in publicly verifiable data that move our understanding of behavior forward” (Burghardt, 1991, p. 86). I shall argue that, as I put it once before, “the reintroduction of anthropomorphism risks bringing back the dirty bathwater as we rescue the baby” (Wynne, 2004). The study of animal cognition will only proceed effectively once it rids itself of pre-scientific notions like anthropomorphism.
Wynne, C. D. L. (2007). What are Animals? Why Anthropomorphism is Still Not a Scientific Approach to Behavior. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 125-135. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20008
by Debbie M. Kelly,
University of Saskatchewan
Brett M. Gibson,
University of New Hampshire
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Traditionally investigations of human and nonhuman place learning have used very different approaches to understand the underlying mechanisms involved in spatial learning. Although these approaches and associated techniques have provided each respective research area with valuable information about spatial processing, one important problem has been the minimal communication between the two disciplines which share such a common interest. Our review examines the two main theories of place learning—the associative approach and the cognitive mapping theory—through the examination of current research using three main behavioral techniques that were developed for the study of spatial navigation in animals but modified for the study of human spatial navigation. Although the focus of our review is at a behavioral level, we consider how these approaches have strengthened our understanding of the neurological mechanisms of place learning in animals and discuss how future research, comparative in nature, will allow for an excellent opportunity for future comparative studies of spatial place learning.
Kelly, D. M., & Gibson, B. M. (2007). Spatial Navigation: Spatial Learning in Real and Virtual Environments. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 111-124. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20007
by Christopher B. Sturdy,
University of Alberta
by Laurie L. Bloomfield,
University of Alberta
by Tara M. Farrell,
University of Alberta
by Marc T. Avey,
University of Alberta
Ronald G. Weisman,
Queen’s University
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The authors summarize progress in research on how songbirds (oscines) categorize the acoustic communication of conspecifics. They found that category perception for the learned songs and calls of oscines are well described by four principles: The exemplars from a single vocal category are discriminated one from another. Exemplars of different vocal categories are more easily discriminated than exemplars of the same category. Vocal categorization transfers to novel exemplars. Lastly, the labels applied to sets of vocal exemplars are descriptive of the natural categories an oscine species uses to classify exemplars. The authors use bioacoustic data to generate statistical predictions about the importance of vocal features; field and laboratory tests confirm the importance of those features. In comparisons between the study of visual and auditory categorization tasks, the authors suggest that auditory tasks are more useful because (i) human photography and its reproduction are a poor match for avian visual systems, and (ii) real-world experience with conspecific vocalizations impacts auditory classification in later operant discriminations. Finally, the authors consider the enmeshing of prototypes and exemplars in the representation of learned vocalizations and conclude that evolution provides prototypes used in species recognition and that experience provides exemplars used to recognize individual conspecifics.
Sturdy, C.B., Bloomfield, L. L., Farrell, T. M., Avey, M. T., & Weisman, R. G. (2007). Auditory Category Perception as a Natural Cognitive Activity in Songbirds. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 93-110. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20006
by Jeffrey Katz,
Auburn University
Anthony A. Wright,
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Kent Bodily,
Auburn University
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Abstract-concept learning, including same/different and matching-to-sample concept learning, provides the basis for many other forms of “higher” cognition. The issue of which species can learn abstract concepts and the extent to which abstract-concept learning is expressed across species is discussed. Definitive answers to this issue are argued to depend on the subjects’ learning strategy (e.g., a relational-learning strategy) and the particular procedures used to test for abstract-concept learning. Some critical procedures that we have identified are: How to present the items to-be-compared (e.g., in pairs), a high criterion for claiming abstract-concept learning (e.g., transfer performance equivalent to baseline performance), and systematic manipulation of the training set (e.g., increases in the number of rule exemplars when transfer is less than baseline performance). The research covered in this article on the recent advancements in abstract-concept learning show this basic ability in higher-order cognitive processing is common to many animal species and that “uniqueness” may be limited more to how quickly new abstract concepts are learned rather than to the ability itself.
Katz, J., Wright, A. A., & Bodily, K. (2007). Issues in the Comparative Cognition of Abstract-Concept Learning. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2, 79-92. Retrieved from http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/ doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.20005
