Psychology Animal Learning Term Paper

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Animal Learning

Comparative cognition is a psychological approach to learning that studies how animals process information. S.T. Boysen (1998) in his article presents the summary and review of different issues concerning this approach specifically in relation to animal learning. Pervious studies and researches were discussed and their findings were carefully explained to show how cognitive learning approach has evolved over the years and what it tells us about "information-processing, reasoning, memory, and the phylogenetic emergence of mind" in nonhuman species. Imitative behavior and the influence of imitation on learning capabilities of an animal have occupied the most important place in comparative cognitive research. However imitation has been a contentious subject with varying definitions as key researchers have failed to agree on one specific pattern of learning through imitation even though the earliest studies in this connection appeared during late 19th century. For example Romanes (1884) found that imitation required "intelligent perception of the desirability of the modification on the part of certain individuals, who modify their actions accordingly," however his research was limited to human learning. Morgan (1900) discovered that imitative behavior as observed in nonhuman species was not exactly true imitation but appeared that way. His work prompted later researchers to discover what exactly was meant by true imitation and if there were indeed more than one type of imitative learning.

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This led Galef (1988) to disclose various kinds of imitative behavior some 100 years later. He classified imitation into "intelligent imitation, reflective imitation, instinctive imitation, pseudo-imitation, true imitation" etc. Galef and others that followed this theory maintained that learning through imitation was subjected to social influences. It was found that animals learnt mainly through interaction with the local and stimulus enhancements. In other words,

Spence (1937) and Thorpe (1956) referred to different instances in animal learning process to highlight the theory that animals might appear to be imitating another object but often their reactions spring from their "repertoire" and is triggered only when appropriate stimulus is provided. This is referred to as social facilitation whereby sometimes animals behave in the manner of the observed animal not due to their imitative capabilities but because the reaction was….....

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