When we talk to our pets, do they understand us? When they make noises, are they responding to something we said? We have this deep desire to connect and communicate with our pets, but do animals share that desire and ability?
Animal Thinking and Language Definition
What is language? If language is the ability to communicate meaningfully through the use of symbols, then some animals are capable of language! Researchers have been training apes to use sign language for many years. Some of the animals have learned hundreds of words and understand how to perform many specific tasks accurately.
Koko, a western lowland gorilla, famously learned over 1,000 signs and understood over 2,000 English words! Through the language and signs she learned, Koko gave us a glimpse into her capacity for thinking. Although she had a vocabulary similar to that of a small child, her communication still lacked meaningful syntax and grammar.
Some researchers believe that this kind of communication is based on training and that it is no different than teaching a dog to do tricks. Animals like Koko learn enough words and signs to communicate, but they are only able to communicate in a limited way with their human trainers. They can only use these new skills to communicate with other gorillas who have also been trained to communicate in this way.
If language is a spoken or signed method of communication with specific rules of syntax and grammar, then animals are unable to share the human capacity for language. Animal thinking and communication abilities just aren't sophisticated enough to be considered language. This doesn't mean that animals are completely incapable of thinking, learning, and communicating, though!
Some animals vocalize more in the presence of humans than they do toward each other. Cats meow almost exclusively towards humans. Cats may vocalize to other cats as a warning when they are unsure of their safety, but it is rare for grown cats to meow as a form of communication with one another. Cats meow enthusiastically in the presence of humans, though!
Fg. 1 Cats meow in the presence of humans, pixabay.com
Animal Thinking Characteristics
Do animals think? While animals are not able to think in the deeply intellectual way humans do, all animals show a level of meaningful cognitive processing that suggests a degree of thinking. Animals share some of the characteristics of thinking that humans possess. These include basic problem-solving, mathematical abilities, social skills, and learning.
Apes are able to learn basic mathematic skills like addition and subtraction. They have also demonstrated a basic understanding of numerical values by selecting slides with the most or least number of dots.
Christopher Bird and Nathan Emory (2009) studied the cognitive abilities of crows.1 Specifically, they wanted to know if crows are able to problem-solve. The crows in the study were faced with figuring out how to extract pieces of food from a container with water in it. The water level was pretty low, but it still made it difficult to eat the food. The crows were so smart! They figured out how to solve the problem: add small pebbles to the container until all the food pieces rose to the top of the water.
Animals also display limited social skills, like cooperation towards a goal. Think about how bees, ants, and wolves work together as a group. This is the social skill of cooperation to reach a goal. These same animals also have their own social hierarchy. Bees have a queen and wolves have an alpha. The hierarchy determines roles and duties in gathering food and providing protection. Another social dynamic of animals is imprinting.
Imprinting: a process that occurs in early life as a way for animals to form a strong bond with the first animal or person they see after birth.
Baby ducks and geese imprint onto their mothers shortly after they are born. Because of this, they seek and follow after their mothers. In 1937, Konrad Lorenz famously explored the phenomenon of imprinting by swapping himself in for the mother duck. The ducklings ended up imprinting on him and following him around as if he were their true mother.
How Do Animals Learn?
Animals are capable of learning. Some animals learn to be better behaved than others. Some animals even learn impressive or adorable tricks. How do animals learn? Learning is simply acquiring new information or behaviors through experience.
Animals can learn through classical or operant conditioning, just like humans. An animal housed in a zoo can learn to associate a specific light or sound with meal deliveries. Using food as a reward, a dog can learn how to play dead. By using a time-out in a crate as punishment, the same dog can learn not to jump and bark when guests come over.
Can Animals Become Smarter?
What affects an animal's ability to learn? It might seem like an animal can learn virtually anything through conditioning. However, there are certain biological elements that prepare an animal to be able to learn a certain way. There are some things that animals can learn, and there are some things they can't. Preparedness refers to a biological predisposition for limited learning that increases the chances of survival.
Taste aversion is a great example of preparedness at work. If you've ever eaten something and later gotten sick or really nauseous, you will probably avoid that particular food for a while or even forever. Even if it turns out that the food was not ultimately responsible for your nausea, you might still stay away from it for some time. The association between nausea and food serves to protect your body and health. This same ability to quickly associate foods with their bodily consequences has been observed in animals as well!
A lot of the behavior we see in animals is an expression of instinct and not advanced cognitive abilities. An instinct is a complex, unlearned behavior that follows specific rules.
A bird building a nest, or a spider weaving a web, are examples of instinct in animals. No one teaches the spider how to build a web or tells the spider to build one. The spider knows how and does it without any external prompting.
While an animal's life may be governed by instinct in many ways, such as in mating or building a nest, animals are still able to learn novel behaviors. Using simple rewards and punishments, animals can learn to perform a variety of tricks. However, it is not uncommon for animals to stop acting out the tricks they have learned and regress to instinctual behaviors. Instinctive drift occurs when an animal reverts back to its biologically predisposed behaviors.
Raccoons that are taught to pick up wooden coins and drop them directly into a piggy bank sometimes revert to normal raccoon behaviors. Instead of dropping them in the back, they inspect the coins or dip them into the bank as if they were washing them.
Animal Thinking and Language Examples
Animals possess a certain degree of cognition. They are able to absorb information through their senses and learn from it to an extent. Bees are able to remember where a food source is located and communicate that information to the rest of the hive. Birds use sticks and debris as tools to unearth food. Stray cats keep coming back to the same house that puts out a food bowl.
While animals don't use language in the same sense that humans do, they share a simple but effective form of communication. Birds convey a variety of meanings to each other through their songs and cries. They have different calls for attracting a mate, signaling danger, and warning before flying off.
Fg. 2 Animals share a simple but effective form of communication, Pixabay.
Is it Thinking or Instinct?
Some animal behaviors seem sophisticated or intelligent. Think of salmon swimming against the current to travel upstream in order to mate. It can seem like this behavior is a product of reflection and reasoning. However, the elegant behaviors we observe in animals are more a product of instinct than thinking. What about the emotions of animals? Are they also instinctual, preprogrammed responses?
Do Animal Emotions Reflect Animal Thinking?
It can seem like an animal is thinking and reacting in a rational way when they smile or narrow their brows in anger. However, animal emotions reflect instincts and not higher-order cognitive skills. Emotions serve an adaptive function, according to evolutionary scientists. Fear is adaptive because it keeps an animal alive. A rabbit fears a wolf without thinking about it. The emotional response comes before any thought or reaction.
Animals also show facial expressions in response to pain or when satisfying a basic drive, like excitement in response to food. These emotions and facial expressions do not require thinking abilities. Some scientists believe mirror neurons are responsible for the emotional imitation observed in other species.
Mirror neurons: cause animals and humans to instinctually imitate what they see. Smiles and frowns are great examples of this.
Differences Between Human and Animal Thinking
The human brain is incredibly complex in structure, neural cells, and connectivity. No other species contains a more complicated nervous system. Our brains are more sophisticated than those of any other animal. Humans are able to use language to communicate with each other in deep and nuanced ways. We even celebrate those among us who are particularly expressive or creative in their communication, like writers or singers.
While animals share some cognitive similarities with humans, they are not equivalencies. Animals are capable of learning to sort, perform basic math equations, and solve simple problems. However, the differences between an animal's and a human's ability to perform these tasks and their motivation for doing so far outweigh the similarities. Our sophisticated cognitive skills allow us to think, act, and feel in non-instinctive ways. Human beings are capable of higher-order thinking.
Higher-order thinking: thinking that goes beyond just memorizing facts, learning through association, or repeating information back to someone. Higher-order thinking requires us to apply what we learn. When we analyze, comprehend, rationalize, understand, infer, manipulate, and connect facts to other concepts, we are using higher-order thinking skills.
Human beings are capable of deep, meaningful cognition. We are able to richly communicate our thoughts and feelings. Even though animals can sense distress, they are not conscious of our thoughts and experiences in the same way humans are able to empathize with one another.
Animal Thinking and Language Psychology
Studying animal thinking helps us understand the evolution of cognition and language. We can understand in ways in which humans are similar to or different from another species and how each species differs from another. We are also better able to understand the ways in which humans are unique among other species. Ethology is the field of scientific study dedicated to examining and understanding animal behavior. Ethology helps us understand animals and evolution, and it is also instrumental in animal welfare.
Animal Thinking and Language - Key takeaways
- Animals experience cognition and engage in a certain degree of thinking.
- Animal and human thinking a different, although they share some similar characteristics: basic problem-solving, mathematical abilities, social skills, and learning.
- Higher-order thinking sets human thinking apart from animal thinking.
- Many behaviors that appear sophisticated in animals can be explained by preparedness, instinct, and mirror neurons.
- Classical and operant conditioning are two ways that animals learn.
References
- Christopher Bird and Nathan Emory. "Rooks Use Stones to Raise the Water Level to Reach a Floating Worm." Current Biology. Vol. 19. No. 16. 2009.
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