Psychology of animal cognition: Piagetian studies.

Abstract

During the last IS years, Piagel's theory and methods have been used to investigate the cognitive capacities and development of nonhuman primates as well as of a few avion and mammalian species. Most studies have focused on formal testing of object permanence, but data are also available on sensory-motor intelligence, on the concepts of space and causality, and on imitation. Some primate studies have tested concrete-operational prerequisites and skills (conservation, classification, and sedation). Methodological flaws and conceptual ambiguities prevent any firm conclusion on the cognitive capacities of some species studied. Reliable data are available on such mammalian carnivores as cats, dogs, and wolves, and various studies confirm the close similarity between ape and human sensory-motor development. There are also indications that great-ape intelligence develops beyond this point, and chimpanzees display basic elements of symbolic representation. In this article, we assess the heuristic value and the limits of the Piagetian approach in terms of its contribution to the analysis of animal cognitive development and to comparative psychology.In the last decade, the problem of animal mind has reappeared in the literature. This problem, which was a central concern of early post-Darwinian scientists (Burghardt, 1985;Demarest, 1983;Wasserman, 1984), was nearly abandoned after World War I, with the increasing influence of radical behaviorism. A number of events, including the decline of stimulusresponse theories and the "identity crisis" of comparative psychology (Demarest, 1980), have contributed to its reappearance.Recent studies of animal mind originate from various fields of research and theoretical frameworks: comparative neuropsy-

Do Dogs (Canis familiaris) Understand Invisible Displacement?

“…Nevertheless, the Piagetian framework remains one of the only theoretical systems to allow interspecific comparisons between levels and rates of development across cognitive domains (e.g., Doré & Dumas, 1987;Parker, 1990;Pepperberg, 2002). By making comparative tasks sensitive to strategies based on associative generalization, we increase our chances of identifying underlying cognitive mechanisms and broadening the comparative evolutionary picture.…”

Object Permanence in Common Marmosets (Callithrix jacchus).

“…One objection that can be made to the experimental findings is that because we tested the marmosets in up to 24 trials, it becomes possible that empirical learning occurred (see, e.g., de Novak, 1994, andDorè &Dumas, 1987, for discussion). With repeated exposure to the task, a monkey may simply learn that the object can be found among the hiding locations and use discriminative stimuli (e.g., the location the experimenter visited) or rules Note.…”

“…Object permanence allows a subject to understand that objects continue to exist, even when they are no longer available for immediate perception through time and space. Because detailed descriptions of the various stages of the sensorimotor period and the tasks for which solutions involve those types of cognitive skills can be found in several reviews (Antinucci, 1989;Doré & Dumas, 1987;Etienne, 1984;Parker & Gibson, 1979;Uzgiris & Hunt, 1975), a brief summary is sufficient here (see Table 1). …”

“…Although it is known that a wide variety of animals can maintain a representation of an object that has disappeared from view, psychologists' understanding of which information is extracted from this event and their knowledge of which animals use which information to keep track of the object are far from complete. Animals achieve different levels of abstraction, that is, different levels of understanding that objects are independent of their own action and are distinct entities in time and space (see overviews in Antinucci, 1989;Doré & Dumas, 1987;Hauser, 2000). Piaget's (1937Piaget's ( /1954) theory of object permanence provides a heuristic conceptual tool to investigate how animals solve such representational problems.…”

Domesticated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) use of the solidity principle

“…This disappearance is problematic because the organism must maintain a representation of the object in memory, as well as generate an expectation about where it will later appear (Hauser 2001). Humans and a variety of non-human animals (e.g., gorilla-Gorilla gorilla gorilla, Japanese macaque-Macaca fuscata, African Grey parrot-Psittacus erithacus, domesticated dogs-Canis familiaris) can maintain representations of hidden objects over time (e.g., Piaget 1952;Natale et al 1986;Doré and Dumas 1987;Pepperburg and Funk 1990;Baillargeon and DeVos 1991;Gagnon and Doré 1992;Fiset et al 2003). However, the factors underlying predictive reaching, searching, and looking for objects that have become hidden from view are not well understood, especially in organisms other than humans and non-human primates.…”