Cognitive Ethology and Animal Awareness

1
Cognitive Ethology and Animal Awareness

• Early writers (e.g. Darwin, Romanes) speculated
  on mental continuity between species, and
  utilised anecdotal descriptions
• Behaviouristic approaches rejected anecdotal
  method and mentalistic language to describe
  animals (see Burghardt, 1985)
• Work by Griffin in the 70s and 80s revitalized
  interest in cognitive ethology using
  ethological methods and evolutionary approaches
  to investigate questions of animal awareness

2
Windows on animal minds

• Griffin used the argument from analogy to claim
  that novel, flexible and complex behaviours in
  animals (eg finding food, avoiding predators)
  correspond with complex mental states (in works
  such as The question of animal awareness, 1976)
• In particular, communication is seen as able to
  provide a window on the private subjective
  experiences of other species (e.g. Seyfarth and
  Cheneys work on monkeys).

3
Strong vs weak cognitive ethology

• Weak cognitive ethology relies on information
  processing metaphors to explain behaviour (e.g.
  animals input information and emit
  behaviour). Avoids the use of affective and
  intentional terms to describe animal actions.
  Uses mechanistic and atomistic terms
• Strong cognitive ethology Uses affective and
  intentional terms to describe and explain
  behaviour (and sees these as crucial to adequate
  description)

4
Methodological issues

• Major criticism of cognitive ethology is that
  subjective experience is private and inaccessible
  and hence not amenable to objective study (see
  Nagel paper full reference on your guidance for
  the essay)
• Appeal is often made to principle of parsimony
  (Lloyd Morgans canon/Occams razor) in rejecting
  more complex subjective interpretations
• Behaviouristic and mechanistic interpretations
  favour laboratory based studies (little attempt
  to study whole animal in natural context)

5
Cognition vs consciousness

• Some argue that cognitive processes like
  perception, memory and problem-solving can be
  discussed without recourse to issues of
  consciousness
• Distinction between objective terminology
  (focused on information processing) and
  subjective terminology (focused on emotion,
  intention and self-awareness)
• Assumption of two vocabularies objective,
  scientific, mechanistic methods vs subjective,
  lay, amateur and anthropomorphic approaches (e.g.
  pet owners conceptualisations of pets,
  observations in natural environments)

6
References

• Burghardt, G. (1985). Animal awareness current
  perceptions and historical perspective. American
  Psychologist, 40, 8, 905-919
• Griffin, D. (1992). Animal Minds. Chicago
  University of Chicago Press.
• Jamieson, D. Bekoff, M. (1996). On aims and
  methods of cognitive ethology. In M. Bekoff D.
  Jamieson (eds.), Readings in Animal Cognition.
  Cambridge, Mass. And London MIT Press.
• Taylor Parker, S., Mitchell, R. W., Boccia, M. L.
  (1994). Self-awareness in Animals and Humans
  Developmental Perspectives. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Wemelsfelder, F. (1997). The scientific
  validity of subjective concepts in models of
  animal welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour
  Science, 53, 67-70.

7
Reading for next session

• Donath, J. 2004. Artificial pets simple
  behaviors elicit complex attachments. In M.
  Bekoff (ed.) Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior.
  Greenwood Press (in press). Online copy of paper
  at http//smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Artifici
  alPets.pdf

8
Reading for next session

• Popular piece on zombies and talking animals
  http//vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Authors/Catspaw-DTP-S
  ervices/valley.pdf
• Washington Post interview with owners of virtual
  pets.
• http//www.virtualpet.com/vp/farm/petz/petz.htmwp
  ost