Animal Intelligence
From Individual to Social Cognition

A multi-faceted panorama of animal intelligence and how it works in nature.

Zhanna Reznikova (Author)

9780521532020, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 August 2007

488 pages, 123 b/w illus.
24.6 x 18.8 x 3 cm, 0.86 kg

'… the style is refined and easy to follow. … the overall impression is of remarkable authority and a profound understanding by the author of how animals work.' Biologist

From ants to whales, the lives of animals are filled with challenges that demand minute-by-minute decisions: to fight or flee, dominate or obey, take-off, share, eat, spit out or court. Learning develops adaptive tuning to a changeable environment, while intelligence helps animals use their learned experiences in new situations. Using examples from field to laboratory, Animal Intelligence pools resources from ethology, behavioural ecology and comparative psychology to help the reader enter the world of wild intelligence through the analysis of adventures, of ideas and methods, rather than through theoretic modelling. It reminds us that there is a world of intellectual biodiversity out there, providing a multi-faceted panorama of animal intelligence. Written in an accessible and charming style, and with undergraduate and graduate students in mind, this book should be read by anyone with an interest in the world of animal behaviour.

Part I. Development of Ideas and Methods in Studying Animal Intelligence: 1. Evolution of views on animal intelligence
2. Dramatic adventures of behaviourism
3. Intelligence under a scalpel: starts and false starts of neuroscience
4. Integrative approaches and coherent movement in studying animal intelligence
5. Ethological approaches for studying animal learning
Part II. Animals are Welcome to the Class: Learning Classes: 6. Habituation and associative learning
7. Learning classes beyond 'simple' associative learning
Part III. Past and Future in Animal Life: Remembering, Updating and Anticipation: 8. What memory is for an intelligent animal? 9. Chicks do not suffer from schizophrenia: briefly about brain mechanisms for processing and storing memory
10. Behavioural mechanisms of experience of time
Part IV. To be in Time in the Right Place: Representation of Space and Objects in Animal Mind: 11. Navigation strategies in animals
12. To what degree mapping is cognitive in animals? 13. 'Object permanence' in animals
Part V. Experimental Approaches to Studying Essential Activities of Animal Intelligence: 14. Conditional discrimination as a basic technique for studying rule learning
15. Categorisation, abstraction, and concept formation: are animals logical?
16. Conceptual behaviour based on relations
Part VI. Advanced Intelligence in Animals: Rule Extraction, Tool Using and Number Related Skills: 17. Insightful behaviour
18. Tool using as a tool for experimental studying of animal intelligence
19. Numerical competence in animals
Part VII. Knowledge is Power but not for all: Species-Specific Intelligence: 20. Is finding a common metric of intelligence possible in real animal life?
21. A sketch on instinctive behaviour
22. Guided learning and cognitive specialisation
23. Developmental studies of animal intelligence: role of innate and acquired behaviour
24. Imprinting
Part VIII. The Wisdom by Social Learning: 25. Ecological and cognitive aspects of social learning
26. The spread of innovation within populations
27. Culture in animal societies
Part IX. Intelligent Communication: 28. Can animals exchange meaningful messages?
29. Communication, speech and language: what falls to the share of non humans?
30. Direct dialogue with animals: language-training experiments
31. A battle for the Rosetta Stone: attempts to decipher animals' signals
32. A dialogue with a black box: using of ideas and methods of information theory for studying animal communication
Part X. Social Life and Social Intelligence in the wild: 33. Diversity of social systems in animals
34. Evolutionary and behavioural aspects of altruism in animals
35. Intelligence in a context of the functional structure of animals' communities
36. What sort of intelligence is required to navigate social landscapes?
37. Theory of mind.

Subject Areas: Animal ecology [PSVS], Animal behaviour [PSVP], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR]