Cognitive and communicative abilities of Grey Parrots.
Irene Pepperberg 博士(University of Arizona)
ABSTRUCT Complex cognitive and communicative capacities exist in a wider range of
animal species than scientists once thought possible. Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) have learned to comprehend and use English labels to
identify objects, colors, shapes, and categories and to respond to questions concerning concepts of number, same/different, absence of
information, and category. Such abilities were once thought limited to humans and possibly nonhuman primates.
The Model of Equivalence Relations as an Approach to Animal Social Knowledge
Ronald Schusterman 博士(Long Marine Laboratory, UC Santa Cruz)
ABSTRUCT Laboratory investigations of equivalence class formation suggest that
animals can be taught to place dissimilar stimuli into the same category. Thus their perceptual world may be organized into equivalence classes, and
members of an equivalence class may often be treated as though they were interchangeable. Thus, if an animal is trained to relate stimulus A to
stimulus B and stimulus B to stimulus C, then new relationships may emerge between C and A. In the real world, it is likely that this type of
interchangeability of class members varies depending on an individual's motivational state; that is, contextual or situational factors. In a
hypothetical example, in the presence of sexually receptive females, a dolphin may form an alliance with certain other individuals in order to
sequester females for copulations; however, in the presence of large schools of fish it may form an alliance with a different group of
individuals in order to acquire food. We suggest that the complex equivalence relations that emerge from an animal's associations and
interactions underlie many aspects of its social knowledge. These events include aggression and affiliation within and between groups as well as
referential communication.