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Weir, A. A. S., Chappell, J., & Kacelnik, A. (2002). Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows. Science, 297(5583), 981.
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Williams, N. (1997). Evolutionary psychologists look for roots of cognition (Vol. 275).
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Real, L. A. (1991). Animal choice behavior and the evolution of cognitive architecture. Science, 253(5023), 980–986.
Abstract: Animals process sensory information according to specific computational rules and, subsequently, form representations of their environments that form the basis for decisions and choices. The specific computational rules used by organisms will often be evolutionarily adaptive by generating higher probabilities of survival, reproduction, and resource acquisition. Experiments with enclosed colonies of bumblebees constrained to foraging on artificial flowers suggest that the bumblebee's cognitive architecture is designed to efficiently exploit floral resources from spatially structured environments given limits on memory and the neuronal processing of information. A non-linear relationship between the biomechanics of nectar extraction and rates of net energetic gain by individual bees may account for sensitivities to both the arithmetic mean and variance in reward distributions in flowers. Heuristic rules that lead to efficient resource exploitation may also lead to subjective misperception of likelihoods. Subjective probability formation may then be viewed as a problem in pattern recognition subject to specific sampling schemes and memory constraints.
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Cheney, D., Seyfarth, R., & Smuts, B. (1986). Social relationships and social cognition in nonhuman primates. Science, 234(4782), 1361–1366.
Abstract: Complex social relationships among nonhuman primates appear to contribute to individual reproductive success. Experiments with and behavioral observations of natural populations suggest that sophisticated cognitive mechanisms may underlie primate social relationships. Similar capacities are usually less apparent in the nonsocial realm, supporting the view that at least some aspects of primate intelligence evolved to solve the challenges of interacting with conspecifics.
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Kirkwood, J. K. (2000). Animal minds and animal welfare. Vet. Rec., 146(11), 327.
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Beckers, T., Miller, R. R., De Houwer, J., & Urushihara, K. (2006). Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference. J Exp Psychol Gen, 135(1), 92–102.
Abstract: Forward blocking is one of the best-documented phenomena in Pavlovian animal conditioning. According to contemporary associative learning theories, forward blocking arises directly from the hardwired basic learning rules that govern the acquisition or expression of associations. Contrary to this view, here the authors demonstrate that blocking in rats is flexible and sensitive to constraints of causal inference, such as violation of additivity and ceiling considerations. This suggests that complex cognitive processes akin to causal inferential reasoning are involved in a well-established Pavlovian animal conditioning phenomenon commonly attributed to the operation of basic associative processes.
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Zentall, T. R. (2002). A cognitive behaviorist approach to the study of animal behavior. J Gen Psychol, 129(4), 328–363.
Abstract: Traditional psychological approaches to animal learning and behavior have involved either the atheoretical behaviorist approach proposed by B. F. Skinner (1938), in which input-output relations are described in response to environmental manipulations, or the theoretical behaviorist approach offered by C. L Hull (1943), in which associations mediated by several hypothetical constructs and intervening variables are formed between stimuli and responses. Recently, the application of a cognitive behaviorist approach to animal learning and behavior has been found to have considerable value as a research tool. This perspective has grown out of E. C. Tolman's cognitive approach to learning in which behavior is mediated by mechanisms that are not directly observable but can be inferred from the results of critical experiments. In the present article, the author presents several examples of the successful application of the cognitive behaviorist approach. In each case, the experiments have been designed to distinguish between more traditional mechanisms and those mediated by hypothesized internal representations. These examples were selected because the evidence suggests that some form of active cognitive organization is needed to account for the behavioral results.
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Roper, K. L., & Zentall, T. R. (1993). Directed forgetting in animals. Psychol Bull, 113(3), 513–532.
Abstract: Directed-forgetting research with animals suggests that animals show disrupted test performance only under certain conditions. Important variables are (a) whether during training, the cue to forget (F cue) signals nonreward (i.e., that the trial is over) versus reward (i.e., that reinforcement can be obtained) and (b) given that reinforcement can be obtained on F-cue trials, whether the post-F-cue response pattern is compatible with the baseline memory task. It is proposed that some findings of directed forgetting can be attributed to trained response biases, whereas others may be attributable perhaps to frustration-produced interference. It is suggested that directed forgetting in animals should be studied using procedures similar to those used to study directed forgetting in humans. This can be accomplished by presenting, within a trial, both to-be-remembered and to-be-forgotten material.
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Reiss, D., & Marino, L. (2001). Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: a case of cognitive convergence. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 98(10), 5937–5942.
Abstract: The ability to recognize oneself in a mirror is an exceedingly rare capacity in the animal kingdom. To date, only humans and great apes have shown convincing evidence of mirror self-recognition. Two dolphins were exposed to reflective surfaces, and both demonstrated responses consistent with the use of the mirror to investigate marked parts of the body. This ability to use a mirror to inspect parts of the body is a striking example of evolutionary convergence with great apes and humans.
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Hauser, M. D., Kralik, J., Botto-Mahan, C., Garrett, M., & Oser, J. (1995). Self-recognition in primates: phylogeny and the salience of species-typical features. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 92(23), 10811–10814.
Abstract: Self-recognition has been explored in nonlinguistic organisms by recording whether individuals touch a dye-marked area on visually inaccessible parts of their face while looking in a mirror or inspect parts of their body while using the mirror's reflection. Only chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans over the age of approximately 2 years consistently evidence self-directed mirror-guided behavior without experimenter training. To evaluate the inferred phylogenetic gap between hominoids and other animals, a modified dye-mark test was conducted with cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus), a New World monkey species. The white hair on the tamarins' head was color-dyed, thereby significantly altering a visually distinctive species-typical feature. Only individuals with dyed hair and prior mirror exposure touched their head while looking in the mirror. They looked longer in the mirror than controls, and some individuals used the mirror to observe visually inaccessible body parts. Prior failures to pass the mirror test may have been due to methodological problems, rather than to phylogenetic differences in the capacity for self-recognition. Specifically, an individual's sensitivity to experimentally modified parts of its body may depend crucially on the relative saliency of the modified part (e.g., face versus hair). Moreover, and in contrast to previous claims, we suggest that the mirror test may not be sufficient for assessing the concept of self or mental state attribution in nonlinguistic organisms.
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