On psychological data collection methods

Concept formation in animals

Rats learn to enter lighted or unlighted alleys to get food, and goldfish can be taught to swim toward or away from an object. In such discrimination learning, the animal is said to associate a physical property of the stimulus with its response, and with some contingency of reward or punishment. Thus, while a dog can be trained to come when called, it need not mean that he knows his name in the same sense that a man apparently does.
Most animals show classification behaviour that seems indicative of discrimination learning. A crow will respond to the danger call of a bird of another species—but only if that call resembles the crow’s. Chimpanzees, however, which have been observed using sticks as primitive tools, behave as if they have a concept of things that extend reach. Based on considerable evidence of this sort, many are reluctant to say that animals are incapable of abstract thinking.
Most studies aimed at evidence of concept formation among laboratory animals have involved primates, although there are reports of abstract behaviour among other animals such as dogs, dolphins, pigs, and parrots. Monkeys have been taught to solve the oddity problem: presented with two objects of one kind and one of another, they can be trained to select the discrepant one. This behaviour persists even for sets of objects that have never been presented to them before. The animals behave as if they grasp the general concept of similarity, which is an abstraction rather than a simple discrimination. Animals also have been tested on the ability to learn languages. With great effort, chimpanzees have been taught to “speak” (through physical gestures) and to use correctly a very few words. A much more successful attempt was made by Beatrice and Allan Gardner to teach a chimpanzee, Washoe, the sign language used by deaf people—the gestures of this language apparently being more appropriate to the anatomic structure of chimpanzees. The chimpanzee learned to use the signs for hat, dog, food, yes, me (self), sorry, funny, go, come, and many others. Washoe’s foster son learned 68 words simply through observation, while Washoe’s companions learned to use sign language to communicate transactions and reassurance. They also taught others the concepts they had learned.

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