PSYC 720 Chapter Notes - Chapter Chapter 1: Descriptive Knowledge, Procedural Knowledge, Ontogeny
Document Summary
Cognition refers to the mechanism by which animals acquire, process, store, and act on information from the environment: includes perception, learning, memory, and decision-making. Comparative cognition concerns how animals process information, starting with how information is acquired by the senses. Beliefs, desires, fear, or other mental/emotional states can be ascribed to animals under given circumstances that meet well-defined criteria (on the basis of functional similarity) without implying that the animals are undergoing humanlike conscious experiences. Intelligence is not a useful word in describing animal behavior. Tinbergen"s four questions: function, a species trait that solves a reproductive or survival problem in the current environment, evolution, history via phylogeny and history to produce adaptations, causation (mechanism, development (ontogeny) Anthropomorphism: attribution of human characteristics or behavior to god, animal, or object. Anthropocentrism: regarding humankind as the most important element of existence, especially as opposed to god or animals.
