下面是一些关于animal intelligence的文字资料.docxVIP

下面是一些关于animal intelligence的文字资料，对你应该会有些帮助。We have long been fascinated by the idea of animal intelligence and many pet owners have speculated on the mental abilities of their animal companions. We like to know just how close animals are to humans – do they think like us? Can they problem-solve as well as us? Or even better? Scientists are also interested in animal intelligence – more correctly known as animal cognition – from the point of view of comparative psychology and evolutionary psychology and with the insights it gives on the development of human intelligence. The Study of Animal IntelligenceThe original method of studying animal cognition – also known as cognitive ethology – was to perform experiments on intelligence in animals to determine the cognitive processes and patterns involved in animal behaviour. This included things like classical conditioning and operant conditioning and was used to account for the more complex intellectual abilities exhibited by humans. However, this method only considered overt behaviour as valid data for study – in other words, only extreme forms of behaviour were considered as topics of interest. The research methods were re-evaluated in the late 1900’s and since then, researchers have begun to use a different approach: they start from known human mental processes and look for evidence comparable processes in other species. Most traditional research has always focused on rats and pigeons but researchers began to focus more on primates and cetaceans. Their studies were also combined with results from studies of animal behaviour in the natural environment, via the fields of socio-biology, ethology and behavioural ecology. These latter studies often show that animals need certain cognitive abilities in order to adapt to their ecological niche. Are Animals Intelligent?Some researchers in the field strongly support the idea that animals have “minds” but while their position has strong support from the lay population, i