Cognitive ethology is a branch of

ethology Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on the behaviour of an animal.

Donald Griffin Donald Redfield Griffin (August 3, 1915 – November 7, 2003) was an American professor of zoology at various universities who conducted seminal research in animal behavior, animal navigation, acoustic orientation and sensory biophysics. In 1938 ...

, a

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

professor in the United States, set up the foundations for researches in the cognitive awareness of animals within their habitats. The fusion of

cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

and classical

into cognitive ethology "emphasizes observing animals under more-or-less natural conditions, with the objective of understanding the evolution, adaptation (function), causation, and development of the species-specific behavioral repertoire" (

Niko Tinbergen Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen ( , ; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning th ...

1963). According to Jamieson & Bekoff (1993), "Tinbergen's four questions about the evolution, adaptation, causation and development of behavior can be applied to the cognitive and mental abilities of animals." Allen & Bekoff (1997, chapter 5) attempt to show how cognitive ethology can take on the central questions of cognitive science, taking as their starting point the four questions described by Barbara Von Eckardt in her 1993 book ''What is Cognitive Science?'', generalizing the four questions and adding a fifth. Kingstone, Smilek & Eastwood (2008) suggested that cognitive ethology should include human behavior. They proposed that researchers should firstly study how people behave in their natural, real world environments and then move to the lab.

Anthropocentric Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From a ...

claims for the ways non-human animals interact in their social and non-social worlds are often used to influence decisions on how the non-human animals can or should be used by humans.

Relation to laboratory experimental psychology

Traditionally, cognitive ethologists have questioned research methods that isolate animals in unnatural surroundings and present them with a limited set of artificial stimuli, arguing that such techniques favor the study of artificial issues that are not relevant to an understanding of the natural behavior of animals. However, many modern researchers favor a judicious combination of field and laboratory methods.

Relation to ethics

Bekoff, M and Allen, C (1997) "identify three major groups of people (among some of whose members there are blurred distinctions) with different views on cognitive ethology, namely, slayers, skeptics, and proponents." The latter seemingly convergent with

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

thinking in seeing animal experience as worthy in itself.

Ethicist Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics ...

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...

is an example of a "proponent" in this sense, as is biologist

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology. Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequ ...

who coined the term biophilia to describe the basis of a direct moral cognition, that 'higher' animals would use to perceive moral implications in the environment directly.

Three views

According to Marc Bekoff, there are three different views towards whether a science of cognitive ethology is even possible. Slayers deny any possibility of success in cognitive ethology, proponents keep an open mind about animal cognition and the utility of cognitive ethological investigation, and skeptics stand somewhere in between.

References

Sources

Philosophy of Cognitive Ethology
Colin Allen, Texas A&M University
Cognitive ethology: slayers, skeptics and proponents
{{ethology zh-yue:認知動物行為學

Ethology Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

Branches of cognitive science Ethology

Relation to laboratory experimental psychology

Relation to ethics

Three views

See also

References

Sources