Some Experiments with Kittens on the Simple Alternation Problem

Shuey, Audrey M.

doi:10.1080/08856559.1932.10533103

Cited by 3 publications

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“…The simple alternation problem is amenable to at least three general types of investigation: (1) Study of capacity to form the habit of simple alternation and analysis of the mechanisms involved; Carr (1, 2), Hunter (6), Loucks (7), and Shuey (9). (#) Determination of the maximum time interval which can intervene between a stimulus and response which are to be associated; Carr (1,2).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delayed alternation in raccoons.

Elder¹,

Nissen²

1933

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delayed alternation in raccoons.

Elder¹,

Nissen²

1933

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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“…Jenkins believed it to be a method that could be used with good control with many species. Shuey (1931Shuey ( , 1932 studied kittens in the apparatus in an effort to locate their level of intelligence in relation to that of other species. Riess (1934) found the performance of rats and guinea pigs to be markedly inferior to that of kittens.…”

Section: Problem Solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative cognition in the 1930s

Dewsbury

2000

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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According to the received view of the history of psychology, behaviorism so dominated psychology prior to the 1960s that there was little research in animal cognition. A review of the research on animal cognition during the 1930s reveals a rich literature dealing with such topics as insight, reasoning, tool use, delay problems, oddity learning, abstraction, spatial cognition, and problem solving, among others. Material on "higher processes" or a related topic was prominent in the textbooks of the period. Tracing academic lineages reveals such teachers as Harvey Carr, Robert M. Yerkes, and Edward C. Tolman as sources of this interest. The alleged hegemony of strict behavioristic psychology, interpreted as excluding research on animal cognition, requires revision. Some possible reasons for this neglect are suggested.According to the received view of the history of the study of animal learning and cognition, there was much interest in animal cognition among early comparative psychologists, but that interest died with the advent ofbehaviorism, only to resurface with the "cognitive revolution" of the 1960s. According to a leading textbook in the field of comparative cognition, "it would not be exaggerating too greatly to say that from the 1920s until the 1960s or 1970s, American experimental psychology was virtually synonymous with behaviorism" (Roitblat, 1987, p. 52). Wasserman (1993) writes of "a long, fallow period [in the study of] the cognitive processes ofanimals" (p. 221). For Green (1996), "cognition simply was not a going concern in psychology before the I950s" (p. 35).As a critical part of this hegemony of behaviorism, it is argued, studies ofcognitive processes were excluded during this period, as behaviorists sought to explain complex processes as a reflection of more simple processes of learning and conditioning. Thus, "at the beginning of the 1900s psychologists' study of cognitive processes in animals narrowed into the study of associative learning... The subfield of animal cognition arose in the 1970s" (Shettleworth, 1998, p. 6), and "so long as behaviorism held sway-that is, during the 1920s, 1930s, and I940s-questions about the nature of human language, planning, problem solving, imagination, and the like could only be approached stealthily and with difficulty, ifthey were tolerated at all" (Gardner, 1985, p. II).This view of a "cognitive revolution," in the spirit of Thomas Kuhn, has been challenged by Leahey (1992), who pointed out that, during the years in question, behaviorism was less dominant than is portrayed by the received The author thanks Marc N. Branch, Thomas H. Leahey, and Herbert L. Roitblat for comments on an earlier version of this article. Correspondence should be addressed to D. A. Dewsbury, Department ofPsychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-2250 (e-mail: dewsbury@psych.ufl.edu). view. According to Leahey, "the central work of mentalistic psychology continued, but it was no longer thought of as the study of consciousness" (p. 313). Similarly, Greenwood (1999...

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Use of Cats in Behavioral Research

Meier¹

1968

Methods of Animal Experimentation

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Some Experiments with Kittens on the Simple Alternation Problem

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Delayed alternation in raccoons.

Delayed alternation in raccoons.

Comparative cognition in the 1930s

Use of Cats in Behavioral Research

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