Animal Intelligence

Cambridge University Press
9780521825047 - Animal Intelligence - From Individual to Social Cognition - by Zhanna Reznikova
Frontmatter/Prelims

Animal Intelligence

From ants to whales, the lives of animals are filled with challenges that demand minute-by-minute decisions: to fight or flee, dominate or obey, take off, share, eat, spit out or court. Learning develops adaptive tuning to a changeable environment, while intelligence helps animals use their learned experiences in new situations. Using examples from field to laboratory, Animal Intelligence pools resources from ethology, behavioural ecology and comparative psychology to help the reader enter the world of wild intelligence through the analysis of adventures of ideas and methods, rather than through theoretical modelling. It reminds us in the gentlest way that there is a world of intellectual biodiversity out there, giving a multi-faceted panorama of animal intelligence using the ant as its touchstone. Written in an accessible and charming style, and with undergraduates in mind, this book should be read by anyone with an interest in the world of animal behaviour.

ZHANNA REZNIKOVA is Head of the Department of Comparative Psychology at the Novosibirsk State University, and Head of the Laboratory of Community Ethology at the Institute for Animal Systematics and Ecology, Siberia. She is a researcher and professor in the fields of ethology, behavioural ecology, and the behaviour and ecology of social insects.

Animal Intelligence

From Individual to Social Cognition

Zhanna Reznikova
Novosibirsk State University; Institute for Animal
Systematics and Ecology, Siberian Branch RAS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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First published 2007

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ISBN 978-0-521-82504-7 hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-53202-0 paperback

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Foreword: An ant’s eye view of animal intelligence, by W. C. McGrew		page xiii
Preface		xv
Acknowledgements		xvi
Part I Development of ideas and methods in studying animal intelligence		1
Chapter 1 Evolution of views on animal intelligence		3
Chapter 2 The dramatic adventures of behaviourism		11
2.1	Classical behaviourism	11
2.2	The Skinnerian branch of behaviourism	16
Chapter 3 Intelligence under the scalpel: starts and false starts of neuroscience		20
3.1	A short history of neurophysiology	20
3.2	Two sides of reflex: Pavlov’s and Sherrington’s branches of reflexology	23
3.3	The puzzle of the memory trace	24
Chapter 4 Integrative approaches and coherent movement in studying animal intelligence		28
4.1	Wholes perceive the wholes: the Gestalt approach to perception and learning	28
4.2	A cognitive map of the learning land: from behaviourism to cognitivism via Gestalt theory	31
4.3	‘Forget about schools’: the development of an integrative approach to the study of animal intelligence	32
Chapter 5 Ethological approaches for studying animal learning		34
Concluding comments		38
Part II Animals are welcomed to the class: learning classes		39
Chapter 6 Habituation and associative learning		41
6.1	Habituation	41
6.2	Associative learning	42
6.3	Common basis for different forms of associative learning	54
Chapter 7 Learning classes beyond ‘simple’ associative learning		64
7.1	Rules of ‘simple’ associative learning	64
7.2	Latent (exploratory) learning	66
7.3	Insight	67
7.4	Imprinting	68
Concluding comments		69
Part III Past and future in animal life: remembering, updating and anticipation		71
Chapter 8 What is memory for an intelligent animal?		73
8.1	Kinds of memory	73
8.2	Different bodies, different memories	77
Chapter 9 Chicks do not suffer from schizophrenia: a brief outline of brain mechanisms for processing and storing memory		84
9.1	Searching for the spatial localisation of memory	84
9.2	Becoming memories: consolidation	87
Chapter 10 Behavioural mechanisms of the experience of time		89
10.1	Travel into the past: delayed response behaviour	89
10.2	Travel into the future: anticipatory coding and prediction	93
10.3	Foraging as soon as possible: impulsiveness and self-control in animals	95
Concluding comments		101
Part IV Being in the right place at the right time: representation of space and objects in the animal mind		103
Chapter 11 Navigation strategies in animals		105
11.1	Display of navigation in animals	105
11.2	Ways of navigation in animals	107
11.3	Redundant sources of spatial information in animals	111
11.4	Mapping in the context of natural histories	114
Chapter 12 To what degree is mapping cognitive in animals?		118
12.1	Cognitive mapping as a methodological problem	118
12.2	Adjusting the track to the goal: short cuts and detours as elements of cognitive mapping in animals	121
12.3	Is a treasure map cognitive? Just ask a wild explorer to inform conspecifics	128
Chapter 13 ‘Object permanence’ in animals		132
13.1	Experimental paradigin to study object permanence	132
13.2	Walnut-sized brains master object permanence tasks: insights from grey parrots	134
13.3	Comparative studies of object permanence	135
Concluding comments		139
Part V Experimental approaches to studying essential activities of animal intelligence		141
Chapter 14 Conditional discrimination as a basic technique for studying rule learning		145
14.1	Experimental paradigm of discrimination learning	145
14.2	Discrimination and reversal shift	148
14.3	Conditional discrimination and rule learning	149
Chapter 15 Categorisation, abstraction and concept formation: are animals logical?		152
15.1	Acquisition of the same/different concept in animals	152
15.2	Categorisation in animals	154
15.3	Abstraction in animals	158
15.4	Animals’ natural concepts: classification at different levels of abstraction	160
15.5	Mental representation (imagery)	163
Chapter 16 Conceptual behaviour based on relations		167
16.1	Cross-modal transfer in discrimination tasks	167
16.2	Ordering and serial learning	168
16.3	Transitive inference	170
16.4	Relational matching-to-sample	171
Concluding comments		173
Part VI Advanced intelligence in animals: rule extraction, tool-using and number-related skills		175
Chapter 17 Insightful behaviour		177
17.1	What is insight?	177
17.2	Learning how to learn: learning sets	181
17.3	Latent learning and exploration	182
Chapter 18 Tool-using as a tool for experimental studies of animal intelligence		186
18.1	Brief account of tool behaviour in animals	186
18.2	Experimental studies on tool use and cognitive abilities in animals	191
Chapter 19 Numerical competence in animals		210
19.1	Criteria of numerical competence for comparative studies	210
19.2	Experimental approaches to studying numerical competence in animals	212
19.3	Numerosity discrimination and estimation in animals	214
19.4	Counting animals	217
19.5	Animals use symbolic representation of numbers	223
19.6	Wild arithmetic: an insight from comparative studies	223
Concluding comments		229
Part VII Knowledge is power but not for all: species-specific intelligence		231
Chapter 20 Is finding a common metric of intelligence possible in real animal life?		233
20.1	Never laugh at fishes: some species and members of species are more intelligent than others	233
20.2	‘Misbehaviour of organisms’: learned behaviour drifts toward instinctive behaviour	236
Chapter 21 An outline of instinctive behaviour		240
21.1	Displays of complex instinctive behaviour	240
21.2	Room for intelligence in the context of selective perception and specific responses	243
Chapter 22 Guided learning and cognitive specialisation		250
22.1	Learning preparedness: some associations can be built more readily than others	250
22.2	Is it easy to distinguish between instinctive and learned behaviour?	254
22.3	A harsh environment for pluralism in animal societies: behavioural specialisation within populations	256
Chapter 23 Developmental studies of animal intelligence: role of innate and acquired behaviour		267
23.1	How an instinct is learned: early experience	267
23.2	How intelligence is wired: innate complex patterns or acquired coordinations?	272
Chapter 24 Imprinting		279
Concluding comments		286
Part VIII Wisdom through social learning		287
Chapter 25 Ecological and cognitive aspects of social learning		289
25.1	Different forms of social learning: brief description and definitions	289
25.2	Ecological aspects of social learning	292
25.3	Cognitive aspects of social learning	296
Chapter 26 The spread of innovation within populations		303
26.1	The ways in which behavioural traditions spread	303
26.2	Possible mechanisms of establishing new customs in populations	306
26.3	What it is to be an innovator	307
26.4	Can animals teach?	309
Chapter 27 Culture in animal societies		313
27.1	Empirical approaches for studying animal culture	314
27.2	‘Crucibles of culture’ in animal societies	314
27.3	Dialects as cultural traits	317
Concluding comments		319
Part IX Intelligent communication		321
Chapter 28 Can animals exchange meaningful messages?		323
Chapter 29 Communication, speech and language: what falls to the share of non-humans?		325
29.1	Communication	325
29.2	Speech	325
29.3	Language	327
Chapter 30 Direct dialogue with animals: language-training experiments		330
30.1	‘Token language’	330
30.2	The use of intermediary gesture languages to speak with primates	331
30.3	The use of alternative artificial languages to communicate with apes	334
30.4	English serves as an intermediary language: studies with parrots	337
30.5	Dialogue with marine mammals … and with at least one dog	339
Chapter 31 A battle for the Rosetta Stone: attempts to decipher animals’ signals		342
31.1	The dance language of honeybees	343
31.2	Semantic vocalisations in animals: words without a language?	346
Chapter 32 A dialogue with a black box: using ideas and methods of information theory for studying animal communication		351
32.1	Ants on the binary tree	352
32.2	Evaluation of ants’ ‘language’	355
Concluding comments		358
Part X Social life and social intelligence in the wild		361
Chapter 33 Diversity of social systems in animals		363
33.1	Anonymity versus individual recognition in animal communities	364
33.2	Levels of sociality in animal communities	369
Chapter 34 If one must be sacrificed, why me? Evolutionary and behavioural aspects of altruism in animals		372

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Animal Intelligence

From Individual to Social Cognition

Zhanna Reznikova

Institute for Animal Systematics and Ecology, University of Novosibirsk, Russia

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