Animal cognition is the name given to the study of the mental capacities of non-human animals. It has developed out of comparative psychology, including the study of animal conditioning and learning, but has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology. The alternative name cognitive ethology is therefore sometimes used; much of what used to be considered under the title of animal intelligence is now thought of under this heading.
Research in animal cognition mostly concerns mammals, especially primates, cetaceans, and elephants, as well as dogs, cats, and rodents. However, research also extends to non-mammalian vertebrates such as birds including parrots, corvids, and pigeons, as well as lizards, snakes, and fish, even to invertebrates such as cephalopods, spiders, and insects.
Read more about Animal Cognition: Methods, Research Questions, Cognitive Faculty By Species
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or cognition:
“Man is the only animal that laughs or weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. We weep at what thwarts or exceeds our desires in serious matters; we laugh at what only disappoints our expectations in trifles.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Socratic man believes that all virtue is cognition, and that all that is needed to do what is right is to know what is right. This does not hold for Mosaic man who is informed with the profound experience that cognition is never enough, that the deepest part of him must be seized by the teachings, that for realization to take place his elemental totality must submit to the spirit as clay to the potter.”
—Martin Buber (1878–1965)