ANIMALS AND SOCIETY: AN INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN-ANIMAL STUDIESChapter 17: Animal Behavior Studies and EcologyCopyright Margo DeMello and Columbia University

Press, 2012

Philosophers from Aristotle to Descartes to Kant said no. Some said yes, however.

CAN ANIMALS THINK?

“For it is a very remarkable fact that there are none so depraved and stupid, without even excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange diff erent words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts, while, on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same…And this does not merely show that the brutes have less reason than men, but that they have none at all, since it is clear that very little is required in order to be able to talk.” Descartes, 1649

“How does he know, by the strength of his understanding, the secret and internal motions of animals?—from what comparison betwixt them and us does he conclude the stupidity he attributes to them? When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play. If I have my hour to begin or to refuse, she also has hers.” Michel de Montaigne, 1575

CAN ANIMALS THINK?

Zoologist Charles Otis Whitman coined the term instinct or fi xed action patterns to refer to patterns of behavior that, in the case of animals, are unconscious and triggered by environmental stimuli.

Behaviorism is a psychological perspective that suggests that all behaviors are simple mechanical responses to external stimuli, and should not be mistaken as deriving from internal thoughts or feelings. In its strictest sense, this theory suggests that animals possess no mental life whatsoever—no thoughts or feelings—but simply observable behavior.

Psychologist B.F. Skinner trained rats in a lab to perform various activities through the use of food rewards.

Ivan Pavlov showed that dogs would salivate in anticipation of eating something good—a response that he was able to elicit through conditioning dogs to associate a particular sound or sensation with food

HISTORY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR STUDIES

A more infamous example of comparative psychological studies were the Harry Harlowe maternal deprivation studies.

HISTORY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR STUDIES

“In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower on the psychological scale.”

MORGAN’S CANON

Jane Goodall named the chimpanzees she worked with, refused to see them as exemplars of their species, and recognized the importance of individual (chimpanzee) agency and historical specifi city in the creation of chimp social structure.

Goodall had a hard time gaining legitimacy and respect from her colleagues, who saw her work as unscientifi c.

In scientifi c fi elds, women have been deemed especially prone to empathy, hence anthropomorphic error and contamination. Women were thought to over-identify with the animals they studied, making them less qualifi ed to study them.

MODERN ETHOLOGY

Until recently, if a scientist attempted to describe the behavior of an animal with terms like “sadness,” “jealousy,” “grief” or “joy,” they would quickly be accused of anthropomorphism.

No human can ever truly get inside the brain of an animal and animals cannot speak, which forces us to interpret their behaviors.

Words like love, hate, grief and jealousy are “human” words in the sense that humans created them. But just because the words that we use to describe these emotions come from humans does not mean that we somehow own them.

Today, many scientists use what one might call “careful anthropomorphism,” in which we try to interpret animal’s mental and emotional states by using what we know of our own mental and emotional states. This then forms the bases for further study and analysis—not the endpoint.

ANTHROPOMORPHISM

Today, ethologists are starting to agree with what animal lovers have known for years: that animals and humans share emotions; love, joy, sadness and anger aren’t human emotions—they’re shared by animals of all kinds.

ANIMAL EMOTIONS

Marc Bekoff feels that animals have a sense of morality, justice, and fair play, and that cooperation and altruism

Play is fun, educational and teaches social skills and confl ict solving abilities

Codes of proper conduct are learned in play—don’t cheat, don’t be a bully, share, forgive others’ mistakes

These lessons are learned in part because dogs learn how to sense other dogs’ intentions

He concludes that social morality and behaving fairly are found in lots of animals

FAIR PLAY

The elephant has one of the most closely knit societies of any living species. Elephant families can only be separated by death or capture. Because of this, they mourn deeply.

Great apes have highly complex social systems. Young apes and their mothers have very strong bonds of attachment. Often when a baby chimpanzee or gorilla dies, the mother will carry the body around for several days. Jane Goodall has described chimpanzees as exhibiting mournful behavior. The gorilla Koko loved her kitten and expressed sadness over his death.

LOVE AND MOURNING

Many animals will closely bond with members of other species; even species that should be predators and prey.

CROSS SPECIES FRIENDSHIP

It is said that humans are the only animals who keep other animal species for enjoyment. Generally when other animals do “keep pets” it happens in captivity where food and shelter are provided. But does that really mean that they don’t have the desire to have pets—just because it doesn’t tend to occur where food and other resources are limited? Isn’t that similar to human situations where pet keeping exploded with the rise of the middle class?

CAN AN ANIMAL HAVE A PET?

Animal cognition is the title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of non-human animals.

Originally, the only theoretical framework to understand animal intelligence was, as with animal emotions, behaviorism. One could observe the behavior of the animal and use that as data, but could not INFER the motivations underlying that behavior. Instead, animal behaviors were largely understood as being instinctual responses to external stimuli, just as emotions were.

INTELLIGENCE

Starting in the 1960s, however, a new research paradigm arose to try to understand animal behavior from the opposite direction, by taking what is known about human mental processes and looking for evidence of comparable processes in other species .

INTELLIGENCE

One of the biggest changes is the idea that animals learn things, and are not just born with a set of behaviors hard wired into them. For instance, it has been observed that in squirrels, when one of them feels in danger, the others hear its signal and go to a safe place. However, if the signal comes from an individual who has performed a big number of false alarms, his signal will be ignored. This is learning and demonstrates far more fl exibility than would be possible of “machines.”

Similarly, learning by association, as when a dog learns to get excited by seeing his collar brought out, demonstrates that animals can learn entirely new things in entirely new contexts, and can react to them.

Finally, imitation is often a big part of the learning process. A well-documented example of imitative learning is that of the sweet-potato eating macaques of Japan.

LEARNING

Crows and parrots can both be taught to count. Cormorants used by Chinese fi shermen can at least count up to eight. Many birds are also able to detect changes in the number of eggs in their nest and brood.

Many birds have been shown capable of using tools. Crows have been observed in the wild to use stick tools with their beaks to extract insects from logs. Crows in urban Japan have innovated a technique to crack hard-shelled nuts by dropping them onto crosswalks and letting them be run over and cracked by cars. They then retrieve the cracked nuts when the cars are stopped at the red light.

Predatory birds hunting in pairs have been observed using a "bait and switch" technique, whereby one bird will distract the prey while the other swoops in for the kill.

When crows are catching food, they appear to be sensitive to note who is watching them hide the food. They also steal food cached by others.

BIRD INTELLIGENCE

Some research shows that dolphins are able to understand concepts such as more or less, and they have also been recently discovered to be capable of discriminating between numbers.

They both can learn complex tricks, and invent new tricks in captivity. At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, it has also been observed

that the resident dolphins seem to show an awareness of the future. The dolphins are trained to keep their own tank clean by retrieving rubbish and bringing it to a keeper, to be rewarded with a fi sh. However, one dolphin, named Kelly, has apparently learned a way to get more fi sh, by hoarding the trash under a rock at the bottom of the pool and bringing it up one small piece at a t ime.

As of 2005, scientists have observed l imited groups of bott lenose dolphins around the Austral ian Pacifi c using a basic tool. When searching for food on the sea fl oor, many of these dolphins were seen tearing off pieces of sponge and wrapping them around their nose to prevent abrasions.

Experiments have shown that they can learn human sign language. Akeakamai, a bott lenose dolphin, was able to understand both individual words and basic sentences l ike "touch the fr isbee with your tai l and then jump over it”.

Scientifi c research into self-awareness (such as the mirror test, or showing dolphins television footage of themselves) has suggested that bott lenose dolphins possess self-awareness.

CETACEAN INTELLIGENCE

Rico, a Border Collie, has learned over 200 words. Rico could remember the names of several items for up to four weeks after his last exposure. Rico was also able to interpret phrases such as "fetch the sock" in terms of its component words (rather than considering its utterance to be a single word). Rico could also give the sock to a specifi ed person.

In 2008, Betsy's intelligence rivaled that of Rico's in that she knew over 340 words. After hearing a word only twice, Betsy is able to decipher that the sound is a command or instruction and regards it as such. Betsy is believed to learn in the same way that human toddlers do, if not faster. Betsy is capable of interpreting the correlation between a two-dimensional photograph and the object it depicts, and is able to retrieve the item simply by seeing the image, despite never having seen the depicted object or the photograph before. Betsy knows 15 people by only their name.

DOG INTELLIGENCE

Elephants, l ike humans and a few other animal species, must learn behavior as they grow up. They are not born with the instincts of how to survive. Parents wil l teach their young how to feed, use tools and learn their place in highly complex elephant society.

Elephants are the only other species other than humans known to have a ritual around death. They show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased wil l sti l l visit their graves.

Elephants in Africa wil l self-medicate by chewing on the leaves of a tree, which induces labor. Kenyans also use this tree for the same purpose.

Elephants use tools. They use their trunk l ike an arm. Elephants have been observed digging holes to drink water and then ripping bark from a tree, chewing it into the shape of a ball , fi l l ing in the hole and covering over it with sand to avoid evaporation.

ELEPHANT INTELLIGENCE

Like several other species, elephants are able to produce abstract art using their trunks to hold brushes.

Elephants are able to spend a lot of time working on problems. In the 1970s at Marine World Africa, there l ived an Asian elephant named Bandula. Bandula worked out how to break open or unlock several of the pieces of equipment used to keep the shackles on her feet secure. The most complex device was a 'brommel hook', a device that wil l close when two opposite points are sl id together. Bandula used to fi ddle with the hook unti l it sl id apart when it was al igned. Once she had freed herself, she would help the other elephants escape also. In Bandula’s case and certainly with other captive elephants, there was an element of deception involved during escapes, such as the animals looking around making sure no one was watching.

Elephants also recognize themselves in mirrors, also demonstrating self awareness.

ELEPHANT INTELLIGENCE

Primates are capable of high levels of cognition; some make tools and use them to acquire foods and for social displays; some have sophisticated hunting strategies requiring cooperation, influence and rank; they are status conscious, manipulative and capable of deception; they can recognize kin and other friends; they can solve complex problems; they can learn to use symbols and understand aspects of human language.

Some suggest that troop and geographic variants in things like tool use suggest culture

PRIMATE INTELLIGENCE

Can animals use symbolic language, or do they only have call systems, which allow them to communicate to other animals only about things that are in the here and now?

ANIMALS AND LANGUAGE

ANIMAL CALL SYSTEMS

According to l inguists, animal call systems lack the following criteria only found in human language:

1. Arbitrariness: Meerkat and prairie dog calls demonstrate arbitrariness

2. Cultural transmission: Goril las speaking sign have taught each other signs

3. Discreteness: Apes can use discrete human words in combination with others to create new meanings

4. Displacement: Apes and parrots have spoken about things not in their immediate vicinity

5. Productivity: Apes have taken words and combined them to create new words

6. Grammar: Apes have demonstrated the use of grammar, as have prairie dogs

7. Multimedia Potential: Apes can use both sign language and lexigrams, and can understand human language

Kanzi learned to communicate with a Lexigram board, pushing symbols that stand for words. The board is wired to a computer, so the word is then vocalized out loud by the computer. This helps Kanzi develop his vocabulary and enables him to communicate with researchers.

Kanzi can interpret and properly respond to sentences he had never heard before, and could also “talk” to his sister about human words, which the sister could then translate into the lexigram.

GREAT APES: KANZI

Creativity. Koko invents new signs to communicate novel thoughts. For example, nobody taught Koko the word for "ring,” therefore to refer to it she combined the words "fi nger" and "bracelet,” hence "fi nger-bracelet.” Koko knew the words for "water" and "bird,” and combined these words to describe a duck the fi rst time she had ever seen the animal land on a lake. Similarly, Koko invented "drink-fruit" (melon), and "animal-person" (goril la).Grammar. While Koko usually just utters words, she can construct sentences like "Lips fake candy give me” uttered while Koko was trying to get Patterson to give her a treat. The last three words would constitute the use of an imperative verb accompanied by both a direct and an indirect object. Deception. Koko can lie and Koko can also tell jokes, displaying humor.Displacement. Michael, a goril la who lived with Koko for several years, attempted to give researchers a description of his mother being shot as he watched.

GREAT APES: KOKO

Con Slobodchikoff has found that prairie dog colonies have a communication system that includes nouns, verbs, and adjectives. They can tell one another what kind of predator is approaching -- man, hawk, coyote, dog (noun) -- and they can tell each other how fast it's moving (verb). They can say whether a human is carrying a gun or not, what color shirt he is wearing, and about his size and shape.

They can also identify individual coyotes and tell one another which one is coming. They can tell the other prairie dogs that the approaching coyote is the one who likes to walk straight through the colony and then suddenly lunge at a prairie dog who's gotten too far away from the entrance to his burrow, or the one who likes to lie patiently by the side of a hole for an hour and wait for his dinner to appear.

Dr. Slobodchikoff also found evidence that prairie dogs aren't born knowing the calls, the way a baby is born knowing how to cry. They have to learn them. He bases this on the fact that the diff erent prairie dog colonies around Flagstaff all have diff erent dialects.

PRAIRIE DOGS

Before Alex, it was believed that birds were not intelligent and could only use words by mimicking, but Alex's accomplishments indicated that birds may be able to reason on a basic level and use words creatively.

Alex could identify fi fty diff erent objects and recognize quantities up to six; he could distinguish seven colors and fi ve shapes, and understand the concepts of "bigger," "smaller," "same," and "diff erent," and that he was learning "over" and "under” before his death. Alex had a vocabulary of about 150 words, and understood what he said.

PARROTS: ALEX

The sense in which animals can be said to have consciousness has been hotly debated; it is often referred to as the debate over animal minds.

The best known research technique in this area is the mirror test .

Self-awareness, by this criterion, has been reported for great apes, some birds, some whales and dolphins, and elephants. The mirror test has attracted controversy among some researchers because it is entirely focused on vision, the primary sense in humans, while other species rely more heavily on other senses such as the olfactory sense in dogs.

Another example of consciousness or the sense of self is possessing a theory of mind , the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are diff erent from one's own. Deception, for example, requires a theory of mind, as does pointing or gazing at something in order to draw someone’s attention to it. Dolphins, for example, can point with their bodies, and apes and some birds both lie.

ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Descartes and others assert that there is no internal self in an animal; without the ability to talk about oneself, there can be no concept of the self.

Irvine feels that the concept of self is relational, ie constructed through having reciprocal relationships with others, and by that defi nition, animals DO have a self

They can interact with others on increasingly deeper bases, sharing information with, say, a human, with each subsequent meeting

The more time that the animal and the other animal/human spend together, the more is revealed about that animal’s likes, dislikes, fears, angers, …self

Through relationships, we sense the subjectivity and agency of the other

If we just relied on language alone, though, we would miss a considerable amount of the other’s subjectivity, and the other’s agency

ANIMAL SELFHOOD