How do animals perceive the world, learn, remember, search for food or mates, and find their way around? Do any non-human animals count, imitate one another, use a language, or think as we do? What use is cognition in nature and how might it have evolved? Historically, research on such questions has been fragmented between psychology, where the emphasis has been on theoretical models and lab experiments, and biology, where studies focus on evolution and the adaptive use of perception, learning, and decision-making in the field. Cognition, Evolution and the Study of Behavior integrates research from psychology, behavioural ecology, and ethology in a wide-ranging synthesis of theory and research about animal cognition in the broadest sense, from species-specific adaptations in fish to cognitive mapping in rats and honeybees to theories of mind for chimpanzees. As a major contribution to the emerging discipline of comparative cognition, the book is an invaluable resource for all students and researchers in psychology, zoology, and behavioural neuroscience. It will also interest general readers curious about the details of how and why animals--including humans--process, retain, and use information as they do.
The major aim of this book is to explore the adaptationist or ecological approach to cognition,looking at how hypotheses about adaptation can be tested, and how adaptationist and psychological explanations can be related to each other. To bridge the gap between comparative psychology and behavioural ecology, each chapter will synthesize laboratory analyses of cognitive mechanisms with related theory and data from behavioural ecology. By integrating research not ordinarily considered together, Shettleworth will present some new interpretations of traditional topices and offer some new directions for researchers in animal cognition as well as their graduate students.
The major aim of this book is to explore the adaptationist or ecological approach to cognition,looking at how hypotheses about adaptation can be tested, and how adaptationist and psychological explanations can be related to each other. To bridge the gap between comparative psychology and behavioural ecology, each chapter will synthesize laboratory analyses of cognitive mechanisms with related theory and data from behavioural ecology. By integrating research not ordinarily considered together, Shettleworth will present some new interpretations of traditional topices and offer some new directions for researchers in animal cognition as well as their graduate students.