On the Proper Definition of Cognitive Ethology

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses cognitive ethology. The study of cognitive processes in animals has emerged as a major field of study. The last 30 years have seen two scientific revolutions in the study of animal behavior. The first one was the cognitive revolution that originated in psychology, and second, the Darwinian behavioral ecology revolution that originated in biology. This had a tremendous impact on both psychologists and biologists. As a result, these two scientific research programs were combined into a single approach—simultaneously cognitive and Darwinian— and are most appropriately called cognitive ethology. The comparative psychology of cognition follows directly from the theory of evolution. It is highly probable that with mankind the intellectual faculties have been mainly and gradually perfected through natural selection. This is a very clear statement in favor of taking an evolutionary view of cognition. Each program has generated new sets of auxiliary hypotheses and, in the process of testing these hypotheses—and discarding and refining them as research proceeded—many new and unexpected phenomena have been uncovered. Several studies, observations, and examples have explained the progress of scientific research.

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