Animal intelligence: Experimental studies — John Shaqi
Animal intelligence: Experimental studiesThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
Animal intelligence: Experimental studies
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Animal intelligence; Psychology, Comparative
Such a prediction may come true. But for the present there is no need
to decide which is better—to study an animal’s self as conscious, its
stream of direct experience, or to study the intellectual and moral
nature that causes its behavior in thought and action and is known to
many observers. Since worthy men have studied both, both are probably
worthy of study. All that I wish to claim is the right of a man of
science to study an animal’s intellectual and moral behavior, following
wherever the facts lead—to “the sum total of human experience considered
as dependent upon the experiencing person,” to the self as conscious, or
to a connection-system known to many observers and born and bred in the
animal’s body.
CHAPTER II
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE; AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ASSOCIATIVE PROCESSES
IN ANIMALS[4]
This monograph is an attempt at an explanation of the nature of the
process of association in the animal mind. Inasmuch as there have been no
extended researches of a character similar to the present one either in
subject-matter or experimental method, it is necessary to explain briefly
its standpoint.
Our knowledge of the mental life of animals equals in the main our
knowledge of their sense-powers, of their instincts or reactions
performed without experience, and of their reactions which are built up
by experience. Confining our attention to the latter, we find it the
opinion of the better observers and analysts that these reactions can
all be explained by the ordinary associative processes without aid from
abstract, conceptual, inferential thinking. These associative processes
then, as present in animals’ minds and as displayed in their acts, are
my subject-matter. Any one familiar in even a general way with the
literature of comparative psychology will recall that this part of the
field has received faulty and unsuccessful treatment. The careful, minute
and solid knowledge of the sense-organs of animals finds no counterpart
in the realm of associations and habits. We do not know how delicate
or how complex or how permanent are the possible associations of any
given group of animals. And although one would be rash who said that our
present equipment of facts about instincts was sufficient or that our
theories about it were surely sound, yet our notion of what occurs when a
chick grabs a worm are luminous and infallible compared to our notion of
what happens when a kitten runs into the house at the familiar call. The
reason that they have satisfied us as well as they have is just that they
are so vague. We say that the kitten associates the sound ‘kitty kitty’
with the experience of nice milk to drink, which does very well for a
common-sense answer. It also suffices as a rebuke to those who would
have the kitten ratiocinate about the matter, but it fails to tell what
real mental content is present. Does the kitten feel “_sound of call,
memory-image of milk in a saucer in the kitchen, thought of running into
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