Minds of Their Own

[katura]

This National Geographic article contains some amazing information about animal cognition. I recommend it to anyone interested in animals, psychology or cognition in general. It seriously blew me away! I bolded my favourite part. Thanks to Lindsey for posting the link first!

Comments

Ha!

[tabouli]

Synchronicity strikes! I've just been working on an assignment and talk I chose to do on Peter Goldsworthy's "Wish", which is about a man teaching sign language to a gorilla and raises a lot of the issues in the above article. Excellent novel: if you're interested in this topic, you should check it out.

Re: Ha!

[katura]

That sounds interesting; I will look into it. Thanks for the recommendation!

[linzznil]

Re: your sidenote, I don't understand how people can take a big thick marker and draw a line between humans and animals, and consider us so much the superior. I've been reading quite a bit on this subject lately, and it staggers me how prevalent that view just inherently seems to be. You read it between the lines in most everything.

It IS ridiculous! Animals are obviously sentient beings with feelings and thought processes. Why is that notion even vaguely insulting to anybody?

Pepperberg the Grey Saleswoman

[anonymous]

IMO, Pepperberg is nothing more than a saleswoman pushing sales of these poor birds, with everyone thinking they are going to get a "talking pet". Many greys never learn to speak, many.

She used that poor bird to gain notoriety and create a name for herself. So now we know greys are capable of mimicking, let's leave them in peace.

I understand she's at a bird store in NJ pushing the sales of Greys. Is she on commission?

Other parrots are also capable of speech, not only greys, but NOT ALL PARROTS WILL TALK AND MANY NEVER LEARN ONE WORD.

Guardian of Silver,
an African grey who only mimicks "hello", but is loved anyway.

Re: Pepperberg the Grey Saleswoman

[katura]

A google search on Pepperberg does not bring up anything about her helping to sell the birds. I'd like to see some sort of evidence for this before I comment on it.

It does bring up a lot of results in relation to her work with conservation and studying animal cognition. I find it hard to believe that dedicating herself to that for 30+ years was all done just so that she could push the sales of a certain species of parrot in order to gain a few dollars for herself in the end.

But it makes sense to me that she tries to publicize her research in an attempt to get donations to keep funding it.

I'm very aware that NOT ALL PARROTS TALK AND MANY NEVER LEARN ONE WORD; I'm not a moron. That doesn't make research on parrots that DO talk null and void. But thanks for coming in here and shouting at me behind your anonymous mask.

[bizza]

As a human cognition scientist, I resemble that mark. I think the hesitation about ascribing animal cognition, though, but it's not necessarily because we want to deny thought, it's for complicated historical/philosophical/scientific reasons. I don't think anybody that I know is particularly against the idea that animals might have cognition of at least some sort. The other thing is that I don't think there is "animal cognition" - as the article alludes, there is crow cognition, African grey cognition, dolphin cognition, and because these species have adapted to different environments and probably have different intelligences for different reasons, it's problematic when you lump them all together

[katura]

but it's not necessarily because we want to deny thought, it's for complicated historical/philosophical/scientific reasons.

Yeah, because if other animal species might have similar cognitive functions to humans, then it's probably not so ethical that we've spent all this time dominating them the way we do, performing vivisection on them and mass-slaughtering them.

I know that's an extreme reaction, but what ethical reason could they have for changing definitions of human cognitive abilities when they find that other animals have exhibited them?

There have been psychologists who have claimed that there's no need to study humans, and that you can find out everything you need to know about humans from studying rats.

I fail to see how this applies. You can say "the results from studying rats are not sufficient comparisons for use in human psychology" without it meaning the same thing as "non-human animals could never exhibit the same cognitive functions as humans".

Science typically requires repeatability to prove things, and the

[bizza]

So because history shows us that, any non-human animal that exhibits complex thought is disregarded? The most likely explanation is automatically human error? Obviously you don't just assume the opposite without exploring further either, but what I'm talking about is that it seems like there is a strong resistance against the idea that any non-human animal might be more developed than we previously thought. Instead of wanting to find out more to discover whether it is the case, the scientists have a history of saying, "oh, you're just anthropomorphizing" and dismissing it. Every person I've ever seen or read who worked on studying animal intelligence has spoken of this.As I said before, I don't think there's as much resistance in cognitive psychologists against the idea that animals are able to do a lot of the things that humans can do as you seem to think there is - I suspect that the articles and TV shows you've read and seen about this stuff have a vested interest in creating a "one scientist battles the ignorant majority"

[bizza]

Oh, you're just anthropomorphizing. :p

Yeah, because if other animal species might have similar cognitive functions to humans, then it's probably not so ethical that we've spent all this time dominating them the way we do, performing vivisection on them and mass-slaughtering them.

I know that's an extreme reaction, but what ethical reason could they have for changing definitions of human cognitive abilities when they find that other animals have exhibited them?Yes, that is an extreme reaction. And you definitely do anthropomorphise animals. Sorry

[katura]

Human cognition scientists typically don't do much vivisection themselves, and I doubt that many human cognition scientists have personally mass-slaughtered animals. So I don't see how your claim that we're all terrible meat-eaters who are hiding from an ethical truth follows.

Why on earth would I believe that they personally had vivisected or slaughtered animals? I'm talking about the fact that humanity in general has treated other animals as if they were machines for a long time. It's very convenient for a lot of people's personal comfort for them to believe that there's some kind of justification for seeing the harm of an animal differently to the way they view the harm of a human (animals are not intelligent, they're not conscious, whatever). It has absolutely nothing to do with meat-eating, and I didn't suggest that it did, unless you want that to fall under the category of "dominating animals", which isn't what I was referring to, but hey, it works.

I suspect that the articles and TV shows you've read and seen about this stuff

[bizza]

Why on earth would I believe that they personally had vivisected or slaughtered animals?

I'm sorry, I've taken this as slightly too much of a personal attack and not realised you were talking about people in general (being a human cognition scientist and all). But yes, of course people want to believe that humanity is a unique and beautiful snowflake. I was, in general, trying to show that the reasons why I might not see the article as proof of animal thought were more complex than that.

I assumed the meat-eating from the "mass slaughter" comment - I was presuming that was the reason for the most mass slaughter of animals.

No, they were direct quotes from people like Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. But thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to identifying sensationalist journalism. :P

Looking at what I wrote, I suspect I wasn't actually reading what you were writing, but instead a strawman version in a lot of cases. My apologies.

I don't disagree with that. In fact I made at least two references in my

[katura]

But yes, of course people want to believe that humanity is a unique and beautiful snowflake.That's essentially what my original point was, and that's exactly what I don't understand. I'm personally perfectly comfortable seeing humanity as just another species of animal with its own characteristics and abilities that set it apart from, but don't make it any better than, any other animal species