scholarly journals Assumptions in animal cognition research (Proceedings of the CAPE International Workshops, 2012. Part II: CAPE philosophy of animal minds workshop)

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 152-162
Keyword(s):  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Animal Minds

scholarly journals Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Observations of Animal Minds

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Parellada
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Alarm Calls ◽  
Vervet Monkeys ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
First Order

AbstractThe relation between conceptual analysis and empirical observations when ascribing or denying concepts and beliefs to non-human animals is not straightforward. In order to reflect on this relation, I focus on two theoretical proposals (Davidson’s and Allen’s) and one empirical case (vervet monkeys’ alarm calls), the three of which are permanently discussed and considered in the literature on animal cognition. First, I review briefly Davidson’s arguments for denying thought to non-linguistic animals. Second, I review Allen’s criteria for ascribing concepts to creatures capable of correcting their discriminatory powers by taking into account their previous errors. Allen affirms that this is an empirical proposal which offers good reasons, but not necessary or sufficient conditions, for concept attribution. Against Allen, I argue that his important proposal is not an empirical, but a conceptual one. Third, I resort to vervet monkeys to show that Allen’s criteria, and not Davidson’s, are very relevant for ascribing first-order and denying second-order beliefs to this species and thus make sense of the idea of animal cognition.

scholarly journals The hidden side of animal cognition research: Scientists’ attitudes toward bias, replicability and scientific practice

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256607
Author(s):  
Benjamin G. Farrar ◽  
Ljerka Ostojić ◽  
Nicola S. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Replication Studies

Animal cognition research aims to understand animal minds by using a diverse range of methods across an equally diverse range of species. Throughout its history, the field has sought to mitigate various biases that occur when studying animal minds, from experimenter effects to anthropomorphism. Recently, there has also been a focus on how common scientific practices might affect the reliability and validity of published research. Usually, these issues are discussed in the literature by a small group of scholars with a specific interest in the topics. This study aimed to survey a wider range of animal cognition researchers to ask about their attitudes towards classic and contemporary issues facing the field. Two-hundred and ten active animal cognition researchers completed our survey, and provided answers on questions relating to bias, replicability, statistics, publication, and belief in animal cognition. Collectively, researchers were wary of bias in the research field, but less so in their own work. Over 70% of researchers endorsed Morgan’s canon as a useful principle but many caveated this in their free-text responses. Researchers self-reported that most of their studies had been published, however they often reported that studies went unpublished because they had negative or inconclusive results, or results that questioned “preferred” theories. Researchers rarely reported having performed questionable research practices themselves—however they thought that other researchers sometimes (52.7% of responses) or often (27.9% of responses) perform them. Researchers near unanimously agreed that replication studies are important but too infrequently performed in animal cognition research, 73.0% of respondents suggested areas of animal cognition research could experience a ‘replication crisis’ if replication studies were performed. Consistently, participants’ free-text responses provided a nuanced picture of the challenges animal cognition research faces, which are available as part of an open dataset. However, many researchers appeared concerned with how to interpret negative results, publication bias, theoretical bias and reliability in areas of animal cognition research. Collectively, these data provide a candid overview of barriers to progress in animal cognition and can inform debates on how individual researchers, as well as organizations and journals, can facilitate robust scientific research in animal cognition.

scholarly journals Core systems of geometry in animal minds

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1603) ◽  
pp. 2784-2793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth S. Spelke ◽  
Sang Ah Lee
Keyword(s):  
Animal Cognition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Symbolic Systems ◽  
Extended Surfaces

Research on humans from birth to maturity converges with research on diverse animals to reveal foundational cognitive systems in human and animal minds. The present article focuses on two such systems of geometry. One system represents places in the navigable environment by recording the distance and direction of the navigator from surrounding, extended surfaces. The other system represents objects by detecting the shapes of small-scale forms. These two systems show common signatures across animals, suggesting that they evolved in distant ancestral species. As children master symbolic systems such as maps and language, they come productively to combine representations from the two core systems of geometry in uniquely human ways; these combinations may give rise to abstract geometric intuitions. Studies of the ontogenetic and phylogenetic sources of abstract geometry therefore are illuminating of both human and animal cognition. Research on animals brings simpler model systems and richer empirical methods to bear on the analysis of abstract concepts in human minds. In return, research on humans, relating core cognitive capacities to symbolic abilities, sheds light on the content of representations in animal minds.

Animal minds

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
The Face ◽  
Physical Functions ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Mental Properties ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Communicative Signals

By examining the mind across species, we can make better progress on questions about the nature of the mind generally. While this has been acknowledged since ancient times, only recently has the philosophy of animal minds developed into a robust area of philosophical research. One wave of recent discussion focused on the nature and possibility of animal belief. Another wave of discussion focused on and the question of chimpanzee mindreading/theory of mind, or whether chimpanzees understand that other animals have mental states. A more comprehensive investigation into the philosophy of animal minds came with the publication of the book Species of Mind (1997), written by philosopher Colin Allen and biologist Marc Bekoff. Given a commitment to the evolutionary continuity of mentality, just as we study other animals to better understand physical functions like disease or digestion, we can look at other animals to better understand consciousness, communication, memory, perception, and other aspects of mind. This approach raised methodological questions about how best to study animal minds. Anthropomorphism (the attribution of perhaps uniquely human traits to animals) and the use of anecdotes as data in animal cognition research were hotly debated. In the face of evidence suggesting that vervet monkeys have different alarm calls for different predators, philosophers investigated how best to interpret animal behaviour and communicative signals. With advances in neurological and biological techniques, scientists started investigating animal consciousness, and philosophers often appealed to empirical research as part of their arguments about whether animals are conscious. Animals also started to gain more attention from ethicists, who often appealed to mental properties in their arguments for granting moral status to animals. At the same time that the philosophical interest in animal minds has grown, many more findings in animal cognition have come from research in psychology, biology, and anthropology. In many cases, the philosophical and scientific discussions are tightly intertwined. This is apparent in the numerous philosophical articles that take empirical research into account as well as in the rich discussions about animal cognitive capacities that often arise from particular empirical findings.

scholarly journals Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Bräuer ◽  
Daniel Hanus ◽  
Simone Pika ◽  
Russell Gray ◽  
Natalie Uomini
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Model ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Empirical Perspective

Using the comparative approach, researchers draw inferences about the evolution of cognition. Psychologists have postulated several hypotheses to explain why certain species are cognitively more flexible than others, and these hypotheses assume that certain cognitive skills are linked together to create a generally “smart” species. However, empirical findings suggest that several animal species are highly specialized, showing exceptional skills in single cognitive domains while performing poorly in others. Although some cognitive skills may indeed overlap, we cannot a priori assume that they do across species. We argue that the term “cognition” has often been used by applying an anthropocentric viewpoint rather than a biocentric one. As a result, researchers tend to overrate cognitive skills that are human-like and assume that certain skills cluster together in other animals as they do in our own species. In this paper, we emphasize that specific physical and social environments create selection pressures that lead to the evolution of certain cognitive adaptations. Skills such as following the pointing gesture, tool-use, perspective-taking, or the ability to cooperate evolve independently from each other as a concrete result of specific selection pressures, and thus have appeared in distantly related species. Thus, there is not “one cognition”. Our argument is founded upon traditional Darwinian thinking, which—although always at the forefront of biology—has sometimes been neglected in animal cognition research. In accordance with the biocentric approach, we advocate a broader empirical perspective as we are convinced that to better understand animal minds, comparative researchers should focus much more on questions and experiments that are ecologically valid. We should investigate nonhuman cognition for its own sake, not only in comparison to the human model.

scholarly journals The Hidden Side of Animal Cognition Research: Scientists’ Attitudes Toward Bias, Replicability and Scientific Practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin George Farrar ◽  
Ljerka Ostojic ◽  
Nicola Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Questionable Research Practices ◽  
Replication Studies

Animal cognition research aims to understand animal minds by using a diverse range of methods across an equally diverse range of species. Throughout its history, the field has sought to mitigate various biases that occur when studying animal minds, from experimenter effects to anthropomorphism. Recently, there has also been a focus on how common scientific practices might affect the reliability and validity of published research. Usually, these issues are discussed in the literature by a small group of scholars with a specific interest in the topics. This study aimed to survey a wider range of animal cognition researchers to ask about their attitudes towards classic and contemporary issues facing the field. Two-hundred and ten active animal cognition researchers completed our survey, and provided answers on questions relating to bias, replicability, statistics, publication, and belief in animal cognition. Collectively, researchers were wary of bias in the research field as a whole, but less so in their own work. Despite sometimes (39.7% of responses) or often (38.8% of responses) hoping for one result over another, researchers reported that they could often (45.8% of responses) or always (38.4% of responses) detach from any biases to perform objectively fair tests of animal cognition. Over 70% of researchers endorsed Morgan’s canon as a useful principle but many caveated this in their free-text responses, and researchers self-reported that a median of 80% of their studies had been published. Their free-text responses suggested a stronger publication bias against negative and inconclusive results, and results that questioned “preferred” theories. Researchers rarely reported having performed questionable research practices themselves — however they thought that other researchers sometimes (52.7% of responses) or often (27.9% of responses) perform them. Researchers near unanimously agreed that replication studies are important but too infrequently performed in animal cognition research, and 44.7% of researchers agreed that their own area (44.7% of responses), or other areas (73.0% of responses) of research could experience a ‘replication crisis’ if replication studies were performed. Consistently, participants’ free-text responses provided a nuanced picture of the challenges animal cognition research faces, and highlighted many possible improvements. Overall, these data provide a picture of active researchers’ beliefs about the animal cognition research processes that can be used to inform debates on where and how the field can improve.

scholarly journals How can we study the evolution of animal minds?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Cauchoix ◽  
Alexis Chaine
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Comparative Cognition ◽  
Animal Behaviour ◽  
Evolutionary Approach ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Time ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms

During the last 50 years, comparative cognition and neurosciences have improved our understanding of animal minds while evolutionary ecology has revealed how selection acts on traits through evolutionary time. We describe how this evolutionary approach can be used to understand the evolution of animal cognition. We recount how comparative and fitness methods have been used to understand the evolution of cognition and outline how these methods could be extended to gain new insights into cognitive evolution. The fitness approach, in particular, offers unprecedented opportunities to study the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for variation in cognition within species and could allow us to investigate both proximate (ie: neural and developmental) and ultimate (ie: ecological and evolutionary) underpinnings of animal cognition together. Our goal in this review is to build a bridge between cognitive neuroscientist and evolutionary biologists, illustrate how their research could be complementary, and encourage evolutionary ecologists to include explicit attention to cognitive processes in their studies of behaviour. We believe that in doing so, we can break new ground in our understanding of the evolution of cognition as well as gain a much better understanding of animal behaviour.

scholarly journals Animal Cognition and Animal Minds

Mindscapes ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 227-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Allen
Keyword(s):  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Animal Minds
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