Animal intelligence: Experimental studiesThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
Animal intelligence: Experimental studies
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Animal intelligence; Psychology, Comparative
If my analysis is true, the evolution of behavior is a rather simple
matter. Formally the crab, fish, turtle, dog, cat, monkey and baby have
very similar intellects and characters. All are systems of connections
subject to change by the law of exercise and effect. The differences
are: first, in the concrete particular connections, in _what_ stimulates
the animal to response, _what_ responses it makes, _which_ stimulus
connects with _which_ response, and second, in the degree of ability to
learn—in the amount of influence of a given degree of satisfyingness or
annoyingness upon the connection that produced it.
The peculiarly human features of intellect and character, responses to
elements and symbols, are the results of: first, a receiving system that
is easily stimulated by the external world bit by bit (as by focalized
vision and touch with the moving hand) as well as in totals composed
of various aggregates of these bits; second, of an action-system of
great versatility (as in facial expression, articulation, and the
hands’ movements); and third, of a connection-system that includes the
connections roughly denoted by babbling, manipulation, curiosity, and
satisfaction at activity, bodily or mental, for its own sake; that is
capable of working in great detail, singling out elements of situations
and parts of responses; and that allows satisfying and annoying states of
affairs to exert great influence on their antecedent connections. Because
he learns fast and learns much, in the animal way, man seems to learn by
intuitions of his own.
CHAPTER VII
THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN INTELLECT[46]
To the intelligent man with an interest in human nature it must often
appear strange that so much of the energy of the scientific world has
been spent on the study of the body and so little on the study of the
mind. ‘The greatest thing in man is mind,’ he might say, ‘yet the least
studied.’ Especially remarkable seems the rarity of efforts to trace the
evolution of the human intellect from that of the lower animals. Since
Darwin’s discovery, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and
the fish of the sea have been examined with infinite pains by hundreds
of workers in the effort to trace our physical genealogy, and with
consummate success; yet few and far between have been the efforts to find
the origins of intellect and trace its progress up to human faculty. And
none of them has achieved any secure success.
It may be premature to try again, but a somewhat extended series of
studies of the intelligent behavior of fishes, reptiles, birds and
mammals, including the monkeys, which it has been my lot to carry out
during the last five years, has brought results which seem to throw light
on the problem and to suggest its solution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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