Can Animals Think?

Abstract

This chapter considers the evidence of animal learning for more sophisticated mental mechanisms, particularly mechanisms that would qualify as thinking, insight, or mental problem solving. It defines thinking as a recombination of causal information gathered from different experiences that echoes common uses of insight, mental problem solving, and related terms. It also examines predictions drawn from the definition of thinking and challenges in testing such predictions. The chapter explains that predictions concern the extent to which animals can change their behavior upon receiving new information, whether they gather causal information of no immediate value, and whether animals engage in both fast and slow decision making. It cites experiments that have been put forward as evidence for recombination of information beyond chaining.