Cognitive function in mammals: The evolutionary perspective
Cognitive function in mammals: The evolutionary perspective
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DOI：
10.1016/0926-6410(96)00013-4
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发表时间：
1996-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Macphail, EM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Macphail, EM
行为药理学家的工作集中在小动物上，如啮齿动物和鸽子。将他们的发现外推到人类身上的有效性取决于这些动物和人类在生理和心理上是否存在相似之处。本文考虑的问题是否有实质性的认知相似之处，第一，不同的非人类脊椎动物群体，第二，非人类和人类之间。来自“简单”任务的行为数据，如习惯和条件反射，并不表明脊椎动物之间的物种差异。使用的例子，集中在啮齿动物和鸟类的表现，有人认为，同样，从更复杂的任务（学习集的形成，传递性推理，空间记忆作为例子）的数据显示很少，如果有任何认知差异之间的非人类脊椎动物。这一结论支持的概念，协会的形成可能是关键的解决问题的过程中提供给非人类的动物;联想机制被认为已经演变到检测事件之间的因果关系，因此将在所有的生态位相关。与此观点一致，比较神经学的最新进展显示，哺乳动物和鸟类端脑的功能组织有惊人的相似之处。最后，有人认为，虽然人类独特的语言能力标志着人类和非人类之间的巨大认知差异，但有很好的证据-特别是从内隐学习的工作中-非人类可用的学习机制是存在的，并且在人类认知中发挥着重要作用。
The work of behavioural pharmacologists has concentrated on small animals, such as rodents and pigeons. The validity of extrapolation of their findings to humans depends upon the existence of parallels in both physiology and psychology between these animals and humans. This paper considers the question whether there are in fact substantial cognitive parallels between, first, different non-human groups of vertebrates and, second, non-humans and humans. Behavioural data from 'simple' tasks, such as habituation and conditioning, do not point to species differences among vertebrates. Using examples that concentrate on the performance of rodents and birds, it is argued that, similarly, data from more complex tasks (learning-set formation, transitive inference, and spatial memory serve as examples) reveal few if any cognitive differences amongst non-human vertebrates. This conclusion supports the notion that association formation may be the critical problem-solving process available to non-human animals; associative mechanisms are assumed to have evolved to detect causal links between events, and would therefore be relevant in all ecological niches. In agreement with this view, recent advances in comparative neurology show striking parallels in functional organisation of mammalian and avian telencephalon. Finally, it is argued that although the peculiarly human capacity for language marks a large cognitive contrast between humans and non-humans, there is good evidence - in particular, from work on implicit learning - that the learning mechanisms available to non-humans are present and do play an important role in human cognition.