Animal Behavior and Nonhuman cognition

Examining animal behavior is an extremely useful way to understand the behavior of human beings, and one of the most intriguing lines of inquiry is the examination of animal cognition. By trying to decide whether animals think, and, if so, how and about what, scientists can begin to understand more about human cognition. Studying animal cognition can help determine how to define the concepts of "rational thought," "conscious thought," and "understanding," as well as deciding what learning signifies. Yet some scientists still argue that proving whether animals think is impossible and pointless. They contend that the study of animal behavior is a valid line of inquiry only in and of itself. This paper analyzes the vario

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and are either theory laden or value laden, or both, to some degree" (Bekoff, 1991, p. 27). Anthropomorphism, the tendency to attribute human characteristics to the creatures being studied, can be the greatest danger in examining animal behavior as a means of gaining insight into human behavior. The observer tends to project his or her own feelings onto the animal, especially when the animal exhibits behavior that superficially seems to be familiar. However, Dennet (1978) does not consider anthropomorphism a serious danger: We do not have to suppose these creatures share with us any peculiarly human inclinations, attitudes, hopes, foibles, pleasures or outlooks . . . All we transport from our world to theirs are the categories of rationality, perception (information input by some "sense" modality or modalities - perhaps radar or cosmic radiation), and action (p. 9). The impulse to anthropomorphize animals under observation can sometimes make the study of nonhuman cognition seem excessively applicable to human studies, but it is not usually a fatal mistake. Anthropocentrism, a related tendency, can also interfere with scientific findings. R. J. Herrnstein (1984) describes the anthropocentric bias as "the assumption wi
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Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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