Cognitive Ethology Research Articles

Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology

Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff, Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology

Anthropomorphic Interpretations and Ethological Descriptions of Dog and Cat Behavior by Lay People

ABSTRACTUnlike ethologists and veterinarians, lay people supposedly use their own unstructured observations to interpret their companion animals' behavior, often in anthropomorphic terms. Recently, anthropomorphism has evoked new interest amongst scientists as a result of provocative publications concerning “animal mind,” that have prompted investigations in the field of cognitive ethology, and much speculation about the emotions of animals. The purpose of the research reported here was to determine the concurrency and plausibility of anthropomorphic interpretations and ethological descriptions of dog and cat behavior and facial expressions, taking into account the observer's experience with the companion animal species. Independent sets of pet owners and non-owners (n=128) were presented with selected still photographs and edited video sequences to interpret, first spontaneously, then in a multiple choice mode. These were programmed on an interactive CD-Rom. Nested ANOVA showed that the choice of different kinds of multiple choice answers was influenced by their level of plausibility, by the personal experience which the people had had with the species, and by the species shown in stills or movie sequences. Scenes which were interpreted with high agreement of over 80% either showed key elements, a consummatory act, or the context in which the behavior took place. They generally represented scenes relevant to the relationship between an owner and an animal. The facial expressions of “fear” and “curiosity” in dog scenes and “stress” in cat scenes were also interpreted with agreement of over 80%.

Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology. Colin Allen , Marc Bekoff

Species of Mind: The Philosophy and Biology of Cognitive Ethology. Colin Allen , Marc Bekoff

Social Cognition: Exchanging and Sharing Information on the Run

In this essay I consider various aspects of the rapidly growing field of cognitive ethology, concentrating mainly on evolutionary and comparative discussion of the notion of intentionality. I am not concerned with consciousness, per se, for a concentration on consciousness deflects attention from other, and in many cases more interesting, problems in the study of animal cognition. I consider how, when, where, and (attempt to discuss) why individuals from different taxa exchange social information concerning their beliefs, desires, and goals. My main examples come from studies of social play in mammals and antipredator behavior in birds. Basically, I argue that although not all individuals always display behavior patterns that are best explained by appeals to intentionality, it is misleading to argue that such explanations have no place in the study of animal cognition.

Animal Beliefs and Their Contents

This paper investigates whether, or not, the behavior of animals without speech can manifest beliefs and desires. Criteria for the attribution of such beliefs and desires are worked out with reference to Jonathan Bennett's theory of cognitive teleology: A particular ability for learning justifies attributing such beliefs and desires. The conceptual analysis is illustrated by examinations of cognitive ethology and considers higher-order intentionality. It is argued that the behavioral evidence only supports the attribution of first order beliefs and that languageless animals therefore could not possess higher-order intentionality. They are only capable of forming simple, i.e., first-order beliefs about their environment.

Review of Allen & Bekoff (1997):

Review of Allen & Bekoff (1997):

Riddle Me This: The Craft and Concept of Animal Mind

This article examines the relations between methods used in both animal work and study and concepts of animal mind. By "animal work" the authors mean humans and animals working together, and by "animal study" they mean the discipline of ethology, especially the emerging area of cognitive ethology. Within these areas the wide range of conceptions of animal mind includes varying emphases on intelligence, forms of rationality and language, cognition, consciousness, and intentionality. The authors' central concern is to elucidate the vocabulary and the concepts which seem necessary to establishing successful working relationships with sheepdogs and gundogs. Their argument moves toward an emphasis on the appreciation of particular intentional states and recognizes that they invariably deploy elements of a moral vocabulary in achieving creative teamwork performances with dogs and other animals. The article concludes by consid enng the relevance of accounts of work with animals for associated considerations of intentionality.

Brainchildren: essays on designing minds

From the Publisher: Minds are complex artifacts, partly biological and partly social, and only a unified, multidisciplinary approach will yield a realistic theory of how minds came into existence and how they work. One of the foremost thinkers in this multidisciplinary field is Daniel Dennett. This book brings together his essays on philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, and cognitive ethology that appeared in relatively inaccessible journals from 1984 to 1996.

Species of mind: the philosophy and biology of cognitive ethology

Cognitive ethology and philosophy of mind - an interdisciplinary approach a brief historical account of classical ethology and cognitive ethology what is behaviour? but is it science? from folk psychology to cognitive ethology intentionality, social play and communication antipredatory behaviour - from vigilance to recognition to action consciousness - essential or dispensable? toward an interdisciplinary science of cognitive ethology - synthesizing field, laboratory and armchair approaches.

Editor's Introduction to the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science

Animal welfare names a science in which investigators ask the general question: What are the capacities, sensibilities, needs, and interests of animals as they relate to their welfare? The objects of study in this emerging field are exclusively animals other than humans. Numerous contexts give rise to this interest in nonhuman animal welfare: The intensification of the use of animals since World War II, particularly on the farm and in the laboratory. The development of moral philosophies that establish nonhuman animals as objects of moral consideration. The advances in science in fields that have added to our understanding of animals, such as cognitive ethology. Advances in technology that give us more direct access to human physiology and psychology and undercut the tradition of using animal models. The success of the contemporary animal rights movement in placing the issue of the treatment of animals before the public.

Cognitive Science: What One Needs to Know

Cognitive science is a new paradigm that informs and involves several disciplines, including artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cognitive ethology, and the philosophy of mind. Cognitive science studies the mind as an information processor, with the computer often operating as a metaphor for the operations of the mind. Developments in the cognitive sciences stand to affect tremendously how we think of the mind and, consequently, how we think of theological and religious claims that concern the human subject. The unity of self, claims of human uniqueness, the relation of mind and body, human nature, and the personal agency of God are all areas of religious import in which the cognitive sciences need to be taken into account.

Evolution, cognition, and survival: Evolutionary epistemology and derivative topics

The meaning of evolution for the study of cognitive mechanisms in animals and, particularly, knowledge phenomena in humans is—and has been since more than a century—the focus of many controversies in different disciplines. By taking evolution seriously, many naturalists and some philosophers have extended the evolutionary paradigm to all epistemic activities including such specifically human activities as science. However, there has also been resistance to evolutionary models, and it has been argued that what is now called “evolutionary epistemology” is an unduly reductionistic research program and hardly apt to give sufficient explanations of complex mental processes in humans. Others have criticized the evolutionary theory of cognition/knowledge as a metaphysical theory which cannot transgress its own premises and thus remains confined in a vicious circle. The aim of the present review is to show today's status of evolutionary epistemology as a scientific theory based on results in different fields of biological research, and to follow the main lines of recent discussions and controversies. Also, the connections between evolutionary epistemology and sociobiology are discussed and the relations between evolutionary models of mind and ethical issues outlined. Furthermore, it is pointed out that evolutionary epistemology will profit from an interchange with some recent developments in particular branches of (biological) science, e.g. neurobiology, and emerging disciplines like cognitive ethology.

Mental states in animals: cognitive ethology

This article addresses the question of mental states in animals as viewed in 'cognitive ethology'. In effect, this field of research aims at studying naturally occurring behaviours such as food caching, individual recognition, imitation, tool use and communication in wild animals, in order to seek for evidence of mental experiences, self-awareness and intentionality. Cognitive ethologists use some philosophical concepts (e.g., the 'intentional stance') to carry out their programme of the investigation of natural behaviours. A comparison between cognitive ethology and other approaches to the investigation of cognitive processes in animals (e.g., experimental animal psychology) helps to point out the strengths and weaknesses of cognitive ethology. Moreover, laboratory attempts to analyse experimentally intentional behaviours such as deception, the relationship between seeing and knowing, as well as the ability of animals to monitor their own states of knowing, suggest that cognitive ethology could benefit significantly from the conceptual frameworks and methods of animal cognitive psychology. Both disciplines could, in fact, contribute to the understanding of which cognitive abilities are evolutionary adaptations.

Animal cognition: an introduction to modern comparative psychology

Preface 1. Origins and Development of the Study of Animal Cognition The Darwinian Heritage and Nineteenth-Century Psychology The Behaviorist Break The Emergence of the Cognitive Approach The Modern Concepts of Representation and Memory The Study of Representation in Animals Problems Posed by the Study of Cognition in Animals 2. Laboratory Methods for Assessing Representation in Animals Learning Sets Mastery of Relations between Stimuli Category Formation Serial Learning as Evidence of Nonverbal Thought Mental Images in Animals Summary and Current Debate 3. Piagetian Studies in Animal Psychology Developmental Psychology and Comparative Psychology The Development of Intelligence Sensorimotor Activities in Animals Concrete Operations in Animals Summary and Current Debate 4. Tool Use and Spatial and Temporal Representations Tool Use Spatial Representations Temporal Representations Summary and Current Debate 5. Social Cognition Experimental Methods for the Study of Social Cognition Social Cognition in Monkeys Social versus Nonsocial Cognition Suggestions for Future Research Summary and Current Debate 6. Animal Communication and Human Language Comparisons of Animal and Human Communication Language-Trained Animals Differences in the Use of Signs by Apes and Children Pre-Linguistic Communication in Human Infants and Chimpanzee Infants Summary and Current Debate 7. Imitation, Self-Recognition, and the Theory of Mind Is There Evidence for Imitation in Animals? The Attribution of Mental States in Animals Self-Knowledge and Self-Recognition Relationships between Mirror Recognition, Social Attribution, Imitation, and Teaching Summary and Current Debate 8. An Agenda for Comparative Cognitive Studies Cognitive Ethology: Mental Representations or Mental Experiences? The Generalist versus Ecological Approach to Animal Cognition Conclusions References Index

Deep ethology, animal rights, and the great ape/animal project: Resisting speciesism and expanding the community of equals

In this essay I argue that the evolutionary and comparative study of nonhuman animal (hereafter animal) cognition in a wide range of taxa by cognitive ethologists can readily inform discussions about animal protection and animal rights. However, while it is clear that there is a link between animal cognitive abilities and animal pain and suffering, I agree with Jeremy Bentham who claimed long ago the real question does not deal with whether individuals can think or reason but rather with whether or not individuals can suffer. One of my major goals will be to make the case that the time has come to expand. The Great Ape Project (GAP) to The Great Ape/Animal Project (GA/AP) and to take seriously the moral status and rights of all animals by presupposing that all individuals should be admitted into the Community of Equals. I also argue that individuals count and that it is essential to avoid being speciesist cognitivists; it really doesn't matter whether ‘dogs ape’ or whether ‘apes dog’ when taking into account the worlds of different individual animals. Narrow-minded primatocentrism and speciesism must be resisted in our studies of animal cognition and animal protection and rights. Line-drawing into ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ species is a misleading speciesist practice that should be vigorously resisted because not only is line-drawing bad biology but also because it can have disastrous consequences for how animals are viewed and treated. Speciesist line-drawing also ignores within species individual differences.

O Morcego, Outros Bichos e a Questão da Consciência Animal

Examino criticamente a proposta de uma etologia cognitiva que queira centrar-se no estudo da consciência dos animais. Argumento que, embora possa dizer-se que os animais possuem consciência, no sentido de que se dão conta de eventos internos ou externos, não há como chegar ao conhecimento exato dos conteúdos desta consciência. Aponto os limites das tentativas de leitura da consciência baseadas em traduções perce-ptuais, em analogias antropomórficas e no uso de critérios comportamen-tais. O conhecimento de um animal fundamenta-se na observação de como se comporta nas circunstâncias que lhe são peculiares, e consiste numa reconstituição que respeita seus modos próprios de representação e de ajustamento.

The Bat, other Animals and the Question of Animal Consciousness.

AbstractrThis article addresses the question of whether a cognitive ethology, based on the study of animal conscious experiences, is possible. I argue that although it may be said that animals are conscious, in the sense of being aware of internal and environmental events, there is no way to obtain an accurate knowledge of such awareness states. I set out a number of reasons why attempts to read animal conscious experience through perceptual translations, antropomorphical analogies and behavioral criteria are of limited help. I believe that knowledge of what an animal is originate from careful observation of this animal's interactions with specific social and environmental circumstances and involves a reconstruction of its peculiar ways of representing the context.

Comparative approaches to cognitive science

Part 1 Introductory issues: comparative approaches to cognitive science, Herbert L. Roitblat the animal approach to cognitive science, Jean-Arcady Meyer creative creatures, Margaret A. Boden. Part 2 Intentions and the organization of behaviour: animal behaviour in four components, Bartlett W. Mel intentionality - natural and artificial, Colin Allen do animals have beliefs?, Daniel C. Dennett cognitive ethology and the explanation of nonhuman animal behaviour, Marc Bekoff perceptual control theory, W. Thomas Bourbon. Part 3 Representation: natural and relational concepts in animals, Roger K.R. Thompson the integration of content with context - spatiotemporal encoding and episodic memories in people and animals, Julie J. Neiworth spatial information processing in animals, Catherine Thinus-Blanc complex adaptive systems as intuitive statisticians - causality, contingency and prediction, Patricia W. Cheng and Keith J. Holyoak. Part 4 Memory and attention: a model of the brain and the memory system, J. Delacour factors in visual attention eliciting manual pointing in human infancy, George Butterworth. Part 5 Communication: language and animal communication - parallels and contrasts, Christopher S. Evans and Peter Marler toward the acquisition of language and the evolution of communication - a synthetic approach, Michael G. Dyer. Part 6 Motivation and emotion: opportunity versus goals in robots, animals and people, David McFarland animal motivation and cognition, Frederick Toates cognition and emotion in animals and machines, J.R.P. Halperin emotions in robots, Nico H. Frijda.

Cognitive ethology, vigilance, information gathering, and representation: Who might know what and why?

Cognitive ethology, a relatively new interdisciplinary and integrative science, is under attack with respect to its scientific status. However, there also are strong supporters of research in this area. In this paper I consider 1. (1) some of the topics in which cognitive ethologists are interested, 2. (2) possible connections between cognitive analyses of social behavior and philosophical concepts including intentionality and representation, 3. (3) recent work on vigilance or scanning behavior in highly social birds, Evening Grosbeaks ( Coccothraustes vespertinus), that benefits from taking a cognitive perspective, 4. (4) what may be gained by taking a cognitive approach to the study of social behavior and what may be lost by not doing so. My study of vigilance indicates that the way in which individuals are positioned with respect to one another influences their behavior, and that when a flock contains four or more birds there are large changes in scanning and other patterns of behavior that may be related to how grosbeaks attempt to gather information about other flock members. When birds are arranged in a circular array so that they can see one another easily compared to when they are arranged in a line that makes visual monitoring of flock members more difficult, birds who have difficulty seeing one another are 1. (i) more vigilant, 2. (ii) change their head and body positions more often, 3. (iii) react to changes in group size more slowly, 4. (iv) show less coordination in head movements, 5. (v) show more variability in all measures. These differences in behavior argue against the pooling of data collected on individuals feeding in different geometric arrays. The variations in behavior also may say something about if and how individuals attempt visually to represent their group to themselves-how they form, store, and use records of the behavior of others to inform their own future behavior.

Cognitive Ethology and the Intentionality of Animal Behaviour

Abstract: Cognitive ethologists are in need of a good theoretical framework for attributing intentional states. Heyes and Dickinson (1990) present criteria that they claim are necessary for an intentional explanation of behavior to be justified. They suggest that questions of intentionality can only be investigated under controlled laboratory conditions and they apply their criteria to laboratory experiments to argue that the common behavior of approaching food is not intentional in most animals. We dispute the details of their argument and interpretation of the laboratory experiments. While criteria such as those suggested have a role to play in comparative studies of cognition, both laboratory and field studies are important for assessing the applicability of intentional explanations across different taxa.