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Pigeons have featured in numerous experiments in comparative psychology, including experiments concerned with animal cognition, and as a result there is considerable knowledge of pigeon intelligence.
Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. The phrase comparative psychology may be employed in a narrow and a broad meaning. In its narrow meaning, it refers to the study of the similarities and differences in the psychology and behavior of different species. In a broader meaning, comparative psychology includes comparisons between different biological and socio-cultural groups, such as species, sexes, developmental stages, ages, and ethnicities. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods and explores the behavior of many different species from insects to primates.
Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology; the alternative name cognitive ethology is sometimes used. Many behaviors associated with the term animal intelligence are also subsumed within animal cognition.
Research into great ape language has involved teaching chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate with humans and each other using sign language, physical tokens, lexigrams, and imitative human speech. Some primatologists argue that the use of these communication methods indicate primate "language" ability, though this depends on one's definition of language.
Michael Tomasello is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University.
Comparative cognition is the comparative study of the mechanisms and origins of cognition in various species, and is sometimes seen as more general than, or similar to, comparative psychology. From a biological point of view, work is being done on the brains of fruit flies that should yield techniques precise enough to allow an understanding of the workings of the human brain on a scale appreciative of individual groups of neurons rather than the more regional scale previously used. Similarly, gene activity in the human brain is better understood through examination of the brains of mice by the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science, yielding the freely available Allen Brain Atlas. This type of study is related to comparative cognition, but better classified as one of comparative genomics. Increasing emphasis in psychology and ethology on the biological aspects of perception and behavior is bridging the gap between genomics and behavioral analysis.
Anthony R. Dickinson is a British academic, neuroscientist and a Scientific Advisor at the Beijing Genomics Institute. He specialises in brain development and incremental intelligence training.
William Tecumseh Sherman Fitch III is an American evolutionary biologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna where he is co-founder of the Department of Cognitive Biology.
Sara J. Shettleworth is an American-born, Canadian experimental psychologist and zoologist. Her research focuses on animal cognition. She is professor emerita of psychology and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto.
Marc Bekoff is an American biologist, ethologist, behavioural ecologist and writer. He was a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder for 32 years. He cofounded the Jane Goodall Institute of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and he is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Josep Call is a Spanish comparative psychologist specializing in primate cognition.
Ludwig Huber is an Austrian zoologist and a comparative cognitive biologist cognitive biologist at the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, where he is co-founder head of the Unit of Comparative Cognition. His research is focused on the experimental and comparative study of animal cognition, and he has worked with a wide variety of species, including pigeons, dogs, kea, and marmosets.
The Comparative Cognition Society (CCS) is one of the primary scientific societies for the study of animal cognition and comparative psychology. The CCS is a non-profit, international society dedicated to gaining a greater understanding of the nature and evolution of cognition in human and non-human animals.
Alan C. Kamil is an American experimental psychologist. He is the Director, School of Biological Sciences and George Holmes Professor of Biological Sciences and Psychology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Kamil's work focusses on the evolution of memory and adaptive specializations of learning in many animal species, especially the Clark's nutcracker and other birds. Kamil has published peer reviewed articles on both theoretical aspects of comparative psychology and animal cognition, and on empirical studies of animal learning and memory. In 2013 Kamil was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society for his contributions to the study of animal cognition.
Nicola Susan Clayton PhD, FRS, FSB, FAPS, C is a British psychologist. She is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University of Cambridge, Scientist in Residence at Rambert Dance Company, co-founder of 'The Captured Thought', a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where she is Director of Studies in Psychology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society since 2010. Clayton was made Honorary Director of Studies and advisor to the 'China UK Development Centre'(CUDC) in 2018. She has been awarded professorships by Nanjing University, Institute of Technology, China (2018), Beijing University of Language and Culture, China (2019), and Hangzhou Diangi University, China (2019). Clayton was made Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Integration of Science, Technology and Culture (CCISTC) in 2020.
Cognitive biology is an emerging science that regards natural cognition as a biological function. It is based on the theoretical assumption that every organism—whether a single cell or multicellular—is continually engaged in systematic acts of cognition coupled with intentional behaviors, i.e., a sensory-motor coupling. That is to say, if an organism can sense stimuli in its environment and respond accordingly, it is cognitive. Any explanation of how natural cognition may manifest in an organism is constrained by the biological conditions in which its genes survive from one generation to the next. And since by Darwinian theory the species of every organism is evolving from a common root, three further elements of cognitive biology are required: (i) the study of cognition in one species of organism is useful, through contrast and comparison, to the study of another species’ cognitive abilities; (ii) it is useful to proceed from organisms with simpler to those with more complex cognitive systems, and (iii) the greater the number and variety of species studied in this regard, the more we understand the nature of cognition.
Herbert S. Terrace is a professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. His work covers a broad set of research interests that include behaviorism, animal cognition, ape language and the evolution of language. He is the author of Nim: A Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language (1979) and Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can (2019). Terrace has made important contributions to comparative psychology, many of which have important implications for human psychology. These include discrimination learning, ape language, the evolution of language, and animal cognition.
Thomas R. Zentall is a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky. His research focusses on learning and memory in non-human animals. A former president of both the Midwestern Psychological Association and the Eastern Psychological Association, Zentall has over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals. In 2014 Zentall was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society for his contributions to the study of animal cognition.
Karen Hollis is an American professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley Massachusetts. Hollis's research focusses on an evolutionary approach to learning and cognition in non human animals. She served as the head of the American Psychological Association's sixth division from 2006 to 2007 and the third division (experimental psychology] from 2010 to 2011. Hollis was the first woman to head the third division. She has served on the editorial boards of many journals, including Animal Behaviour, Animal Learning & Behavior and the Journal of Comparative Psychology.
Clive D. L. Wynne is a British-Australian ethologist specializing in the behavior of dogs and their wild relatives. He has worked in the United States, Australia, and Europe, and is currently based at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. He was born and raised on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, studied at University College London, and got his Ph.D. at Edinburgh University. He has studied the behavior of many species - ranging from pigeons to dunnarts, but starting around 2006 melded his childhood love of dogs with his professional training and now studies and teaches about the behavior of dogs and their wild relatives.
References
- ↑ "Comparative Cognition Laboratory | Psychological and Brain Sciences".
- ↑ "300 million years of pre-crastination - Psychonomic Society". Archived from the original on 2015-05-07. Retrieved 2015-04-20.
- ↑ EW CV 2012 uiowa.edu Archived 2013-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Conference program 2015 comparativecognition.org [ permanent dead link ]
