Fundamentals of Comparative Cognition

by Shettleworth, Sara J.; Bloom, Paul; Nadel, Lynn

• ISBN13: 9780195343106
• ISBN10: 0195343107
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-03-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

With the growing accessibility of original journal articles and papers, a staggering number of professors teaching junior/senior level courses are turning away from the use of textbooks in favor of primary research papers. The Fundamentals of Cognition series covers the main topics in thefield of Cognitive Psychology, and will address the need professors have for a brief, yet detailed, overview of specific topics in cognitive psychology. The books in this series will serve as a unifying discussion of the topic and provide continuity and cohesion to the discussion of primaryresearch papers. These primers will be written by prominent cognitive scientists with the ability to write accessibly about complex subjects. They will capture the current state of this fast moving field and reflect the authors' views.Comparative Cognition has countless connections to the rest of psychology and encompasses the comparative and evolutionary basis of development and social psychological processes as well as every aspect of cognition. Comparative research also provides the basis for the animal models used inbehavioral neuroscience and genetics. This text on the Fundamentals of Comparative Cognition will convey the richness and excitement of this diverse field while addressing the fundamental questions of what makes us uniquely human and what we share with other creatures. Professors' experience withShettleworth's graduate text and her clear, direct, and interesting writing style makes them very excited about the possibility of Shettleworth writing an undergraduate text in this field.

Author Biography

Sara J. Shettleworth, Professor Emerita in the Departments of Psychology and Ecology Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, is the recipient of the Comparative Cognition Society's 2008 Research Award and a Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and Royal Society of Canada. Her research on learning and memory in a variety of species of birds and mammals has been published in more than 100 articles and book chapters. Her widely-read book Cognition, Evolution, and Behavior (OUP, 2010) is now in its second edition.

Table of Contents

Series Introduction	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
What Is Comparative Cognition About?	p. 1
"From Darwin to Behaviorism": A Little History	p. 2
Research in the Twenty-First Century: Tool-Using Crows	p. 7
How This Book Is Organized	p. 14
Basic Processes	p. 17
Perception and Attention	p. 18
Memory	p. 20
Associative Learning	p. 34
Discrimination, Classification, and Concepts	p. 41
Physical Cognition	p. 49
Spatial Cognition: How Do Animals Find Their Way Around?	p. 49
Two Timing Systems	p. 57
Numerical Cognition	p. 61
Putting It Together: Foraging and Planning	p. 66
Using Tools	p. 73
Social Cognition	p. 81
Social Behavior: The Basics	p. 82
Social Learning	p. 93
Communication	p. 101
Comparative Cognition and Human Uniqueness	p. 112
Different in Degree or Kind?	p. 112
Clues from Modularity and Development	p. 118
References	p. 125
Credits	p. 151
Name Index	p. 155
Subject Index	p. 163
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