Introduction to animal cognition Flashcards
what is cognition?
It’s fundamental to psychology, defined as the study of the mind.
It provides an explanation for behaviour in terms of mechanisms, and these do not have to be neural (unless you’re a neuroscientist).
To use an analogy between us and a computer, we’re more interested in the software (mind) than the hardware (brain), though obviously there’s a synergy between the two.
Animal Cognition is the study of animal minds then
why should we study animal cognition?
It’s interesting in its own right.
It provides valuable insights into human psychology. I’ll try and bring this out as I go through these lectures.
Many of our effective interventions (e.g. CBT) are, in part, based on work studying animal behaviour.
Much of what we know about the brain was initially based on work with animals (see Lee Hogarth’s lectures on neuroscience in the second half of this module).
History I: Victorian biology
Romanes
Lloyd Morgan
Romanes
Darwin’s nominated intellectual heir: advocated mental continuity
“Animal intelligence”: collection of anecdotes, interpreted mentalistically
Scala naturae of mental function – animals in order on scale of intelligence
- Not the full story
Lloyd Morgan
Biologist
Sceptical of Romanes
Lloyd Morgan’s Canon: Invoke only those mental processes necessary to explain the observed behaviour – animals do something in experiment that we think we might do – not necessarily the case
E.g., enhancement vs. imitation.
history II: The discovery of conditioning
Thorndike
Pavlov
Watson
Thorndike
Experimental studies of instrumental learning
Claimed new complex behaviour arose through blind trial and error alone
Laws of Exercise (behaviour is strengthened by repetition) and Effect (behaviour is strengthened if “satisfying state of affairs” follows)
Coined term “reinforcement” - actions followed by consequences
Described behaviour in terms of Stimulus-Response bonds
Pavlov
Observed “psychic secretions” of saliva in dogs
Devised theory of cortical excitation and inhibition to account for these conditional reflexes
Watson
Reacting against introspectionist accounts of human mental life
Coined term “behavio[u]rism”
Assume animals are like simple machines until proved otherwise
Popularised Pavlovian “conditioning” as an explanation of all learning
“All psychology can be reduced to conditioning”
Thorndike’s law of effect
responses followed/accompanied by satisfaction to animal, more firmly connected with the situation so when it recurs, they’re more likely to recur and vice versa - greater satisfaction = greater bond
instrumental conditioning: the law of effect
The idea is that this is how habits form
Perception of the stimulus
Habits independent of consequences – set up by repeated pairing
stimulus –> response reinforcer
see notes
Pavlov’s dogs
Tended to use a light rather than a bell
Difference between classical and instrumental conditioning = dog didn’t have to do anything
see notes
history III: Methodological behaviourism (1920-1960)
Accepting the discipline of behaviourism: all research must focus on observable behaviour
But using behaviour to draw conclusions about underlying mental processes
Major figures: Hull and Tolman
Clark Hull
Publications from ca. 1920 to ca. 1950
Wide range of topics
Interlocking theories of motivation and learning, through reinforcement
Best known experimental work on rats learning to run mazes and runways
In practice all learning explained by reinforcement of S-R bonds through reinforcement by drive reduction
Theories expressed in mathematical form, under the influence of falsificationist philosophy of science
Died 1951; theoretical tradition continued by Spence, Mowrer, Amsel, Capaldi.
Edward Tolman
Experiments on rats
- in complex mazes or
- choosing between complex objectives
Introduced key cognitive concepts:
- Cognitive maps (his term)
- what we would now call Decision theory
Accounted for learning in terms of Stimulus-Stimulus associations – more explanatory power
Described thought as “internalised running backwards and forwards“
No well-known successors (though Lashley, Lawrence and others took forward some of his ideas), but known and respected by later animal cognition researchers, e.g. Tony Dickinson, Nick Mackintosh, John Pearce, Geoff Hall.
history IV: The first cog alternative: Köhler and the Mentality of Apes
Gestalt psychologist studying problem solving in apes as an example of perceptual reorganization
Claimed to observe “insight”: changes in behaviour from trial to trial not explicable in terms of observable trial and error or reinforcement - sudden emergence of solution
Comparative studies (chickens, dogs, chimpanzees)
Status today? – can we actually see it in experiments?
why methodological behaviourism failed
It didn’t - it just went out of fashion for a while…
Research was all based on rats when exciting new ideas about human cognition were becoming available via the computer analogy
But, in essence, it’s very much in the spirit of the psychological research that we do today.
history V: Skinner and radical behaviourism
Not now influential
Taking behaviourism to extremes:
- Behaviour is all we can observe so psychology should simply be about behaviour.
- There is no “inside story” that is worth telling!
Early Skinner box studies with rats established
- key concepts of operant response and reinforcement
- key procedure of shaping
From the beginning, operant conditioning was applied (in the form of “behaviour modification”) to clinical, educational and other applied settings
- It was extremely influential for a time.
why was radical behaviourism initially successful?
Skinner’s powerful polemic, e.g. “Are theories of learning necessary?“
Replacing apparently irresolvable theoretical arguments with directly observable “control over behaviour“
Huge range of powerful schedules meant any required behaviour could be produced on demand
Apparently “cognitive” effects could be synthesised using operant conditioning procedures
Radical behaviourism offered a simplifying and surprising philosophy
why did radical behaviourism fail?
Denial of “inside story” simply incorrect.
- We all know there is something that goes on in the head
Skinner’s attempt to account for language mocked by Chomsky
Experiments on human operant conditioning showed marked differences from animal results
origins of the new cognitive psychology
Revival of interest in Pavlovian conditioning produced a body of researchers with no debt to Skinnerian psychology
Dominance of cognitive approaches to psychology made a cognitive approach to comparative psychology logical
recent work on Pavlovian conditioning
Started in late 1960s with Rescorla and Wagner in USA
Key experiments by Kamin, Holland and others
Theoretical and experimental advances by Mackintosh, Dickinson, Hall and Pearce in UK
Key theoretical concept became “representation” of stimulus and response events.
- Coding used in the head to connect one to another
direct application of ideas from animal cognition to humans
Modern research on associative learning in humans takes ideas from animal learning and applies them to humans.
This has led to Dual Process Theory – whereby human mental life is understood in terms of a combination of associative and more cognitive (rule-based) processes.
An early example of this: McLaren, Green and Mackintosh (1994)
A more recent one in the same vein would be McLaren, I. P. L., Forrest, C.L., McLaren, R.P., Jones, F.W., Aitken, M.R.F. and Mackintosh, N.J. (2014).
direct application if ideas from human cognition to animals
It cuts both ways!
Earliest example when ideas about attention obtained from studies with humans were used to explain discrimination learning (Sutherland & Mackintosh)
Demonstrations of powerful spatial learning (Olton) seemed to call for concepts of animal memory.
Complex discrimination learning experiments of Herrnstein and followers were reminiscent of concept formation (though this was too bold a claim).
As the next examples show, we should be wary of imputing our more cognitive abilities to other animals.
Always remember Lloyd Morgan’s Canon.
social co-op learning in pigeons - or not
sender and receiver - see each other but not keys/lights
sender = lights
receiver = keys
reward if press right key with light
eventually can communicate and solve problem
imitation in the rat - or not
watched demonstrator push a joystick either left or right
then when in same situation imitated the demonstrator
self-awareness in the chimpanzee - or not
Gallup (1970) studied the reactions of chimpanzees and macaques to their mirror reflections (8 hours per day for 10-14 days)
Over time, chimpanzees showed an increase in the number of self-directed behaviours that relied on the use of the mirror
- Grooming parts of the body that would otherwise be visually inaccessible
- Picking bits of food from the teeth whilst looking in the mirror
The monkeys, however, reacted to the mirror socially, as if treating it as a conspecific* (as indeed had the chimpanzees during the first couple of days of exposure) - recent reports of monkeys eventually getting it.
the Mark Test
After the exposure period, all subjects were anesthetised and bright red marks were placed on visually inaccessible locations on the body
- one eyebrow ridge
- the opposite ear
Upon re-exposure to the mirror, chimpanzees touched the mark more than other parts of their body
The monkeys did not touch the marks any more than any other part of the body
self-awareness?
The mark test gives interesting results across different species, but is it truly an index of self-awareness? Or are some species just faster learners?
Learning to control ones actions on the basis of feedback in a mirror is undoubtedly a skill (e.g. shaving) but does it imply self-awareness?
Each time you shave do you think about it? Do you have to go through some process of recognising “that’s me” before you can begin?
And you know it’s you in a mirror, but does this help you learn mirror drawing?
I would argue that the evidence for self awareness here is weak.
