Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Foreword
- Author affiliations
- Abbreviations
- 1 The paradoxical nature of nature
- 2 Paradoxical effects of sensory loss
- 3 Paradoxical functional facilitation and recovery in neurological and psychiatric conditions
- 4 Paradoxes in neurorehabilitation
- 5 The paradoxical self
- 6 Paradoxical psychological functioning in early child development
- 7 Cognitive ageing: a positive perspective
- 8 Paradoxes of learning and memory
- 9 The paradox of human expertise: why experts get it wrong
- 10 Paradoxes in Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders
- 11 Paradoxical phenomena in epilepsy
- 12 Paradoxical creativity and adjustment in neurological conditions
- 13 Paradoxical functional facilitation with noninvasive brain stimulation
- 14 Unexpected benefits of allergies and cigarette smoking: two examples of paradox in neuroepidemiology
- 15 The paradox of autism: why does disability sometimes give rise to talent?
- 16 Paradoxes in creativity and psychiatric conditions
- 17 The paradox of psychosurgery to treat mental disorders
- 18 The paradox of electroconvulsive therapy
- 19 Paradoxes of comparative cognition
- 20 Paradoxical phenomena in brain plasticity
- 21 Immature neurons in the adult brain. Breaking all the rules
- 22 The paradoxical hippocampus: when forgetting helps learning
- 23 Paradoxical effects of drugs on cognitive function: the neuropsychopharmacology of the dopamine and other neurotransmitter systems
- 24 The paradoxical brain – so what?
- Index
- References
19 - Paradoxes of comparative cognition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Foreword
- Author affiliations
- Abbreviations
- 1 The paradoxical nature of nature
- 2 Paradoxical effects of sensory loss
- 3 Paradoxical functional facilitation and recovery in neurological and psychiatric conditions
- 4 Paradoxes in neurorehabilitation
- 5 The paradoxical self
- 6 Paradoxical psychological functioning in early child development
- 7 Cognitive ageing: a positive perspective
- 8 Paradoxes of learning and memory
- 9 The paradox of human expertise: why experts get it wrong
- 10 Paradoxes in Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders
- 11 Paradoxical phenomena in epilepsy
- 12 Paradoxical creativity and adjustment in neurological conditions
- 13 Paradoxical functional facilitation with noninvasive brain stimulation
- 14 Unexpected benefits of allergies and cigarette smoking: two examples of paradox in neuroepidemiology
- 15 The paradox of autism: why does disability sometimes give rise to talent?
- 16 Paradoxes in creativity and psychiatric conditions
- 17 The paradox of psychosurgery to treat mental disorders
- 18 The paradox of electroconvulsive therapy
- 19 Paradoxes of comparative cognition
- 20 Paradoxical phenomena in brain plasticity
- 21 Immature neurons in the adult brain. Breaking all the rules
- 22 The paradoxical hippocampus: when forgetting helps learning
- 23 Paradoxical effects of drugs on cognitive function: the neuropsychopharmacology of the dopamine and other neurotransmitter systems
- 24 The paradoxical brain – so what?
- Index
- References
Summary
Summary
The scala naturae (latin for ‘natural ladder’) is a concept of the order of natural forms that is often referred to as the great chain of being. It dates from medieval Christianity, and applies a rigid hierarchical organization to all matter and life. At the bottom of this hierarchy is earth, while God occupies the pinnacle. When applied to various forms of life, the hierarchy takes a very intuitive form, beginning with simple organisms which are followed by invertebrates, and then the vertebrates are placed in a relatively intuitive ‘evolutionary’ sequence (amphibians, reptiles, ‘lower’ mammals, ‘intermediate’ mammals and ‘higher’ mammals, e.g. primates). Perhaps not surprisingly, humans placed themselves at the pinnacle of this ‘tree of life’ (see Figure 19.1).
The earliest versions of the scala naturae predate Charles Darwin by several centuries, and despite the fact that over 150 years have passed since the original publication of The Origin of Species (1859), current notions of evolution are often imbued with elements of the scala naturae. While such hierarchical conceptualizations are apparently quite seductive, these intrusions of the scala do not serve theories of comparative cognition (Hodos and Campbell,1969).
This chapter explores several cases in which the visual cognition of animals appears to surpass that of humans. These cases are quite naturally considered paradoxical, but the reader is encouraged to consider why any instance of superiority of non-human visual cognition is so readily regarded as paradoxical.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Paradoxical Brain , pp. 332 - 349Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
References
, & (1961). Short-term memory in vision. Bell Systems Technical Journal, 40: 309–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1709). An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. Gloucester: Dodo Press. [Republished in 2007.]Google Scholar
(2007). What makes us human (Homo-sapiens)? The challenge of cognitive cross-species comparison. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 121: 227–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (2007). Basic math in monkeys and college students. PLoS Biology, 5: 2912.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , & (2008). Failure to see: attentive blank stares revealed by change blindness. Consciousness and Cognition, 17: 877–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , & (2007). Evidence of a nonlinear human magnetic sense. Neuroscience, 144: 356–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1983). Eidetic images in insects: their role in navigation. Trends in Neuroscience, 6: 101–05.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1859). The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London: John Murrray Albemarle Street.Google Scholar
, , , , , & (2010). A seizure response dog: video recording of reacting behaviour during repetitive prolonged seizures. Epileptic Disorders, May 17 [Epub ahead of print].Google ScholarPubMed
(2009). You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but get Lost in the Mall. New York, NY: Knopf/Doubleday publishing.Google Scholar
, & (2009). Comparative social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 60: 87–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1982). Measuring primate learning abilities. In: & (Eds.). Primate Behaviour. New York, NY: Academic Press, pp. 289–326.Google Scholar
(1960). The concept of the stimulus in Psychology. American Psychologist, 15: 694–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , & (2001). The concepts of ‘sameness' and ‘difference’ in an insect. Nature, 410: 930–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1964). Eidetic imagery: I. Frequency. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 19: 131–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1949). The formation of learning sets. Psychological Review, 56: 51–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1929). The visual acuity of the honey bee. The Journal of General Physiology, 12: 727–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1969). Scala naturae: why there is no theory in comparative psychology?Psychological Review, 76: 337–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1980). Canopy orientation: a new kind of orientation in ants. Science, 210: 86–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(2002). Chapter 14 – The Deformed Transformed in The Mind Made Flesh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 165–99.Google Scholar
, & (2008). Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees. Current Biology, 17: R1004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008). The evolution of the complex sensory and motor systems of the human brain. Brain Research Bulletin, 75: 384–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (2007). Auditory cortex of bats and primates: managing species-specific calls for social communication. Frontiers in Bioscience, 12: 4621–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1951). The problem of serial order in behavior. In: (Ed.). Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior. The Hixon Symposium.New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 112–36.Google Scholar
, , , & (2001). Behavioural assessment of visual acuity in bumblebees (Bombus impatiens). The Journal of Experimental Biology, 204: 559–64.Google Scholar
(2008). The dolphin brain – a challenge for synthetic neurobiology. Brain Research Bulletin, 75: 450–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008). One world, many minds. Scientific American Mind, December issue, 72–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (2009). Detecting and remembering simultaneous pictures in a rapid serial visual presentation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35: 28–38.Google Scholar
, , & (1997). To see or not to see: the need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8: 368–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (2008). Representation of serial order: a comparative analysis of humans, monkeys, and pigeons. Brain Research Bulletin, 76: 307–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (2009). Memory for the order of briefly presented numerals in humans as a function of practice. Animal Cognition, 12: 405–07.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1960). The information available in brief visual presentations. Psychological Monographs, 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1982). An adult eidetiker. In: (Ed.), Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Co, Chapter 40, pp. 399–404.Google Scholar
, , , , , & (2008). Are animals autistic savants?PLoS Biology, 6: 0208–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1951). The general and logical theory of automata. In: (Ed.). Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior. The Hixon Symposium. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 1–32.Google Scholar
(1981). Spatial vision in Arthropods. In: The Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII/6C Vision in Invertebrates. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, Chapter 4, pp. 287–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , & (1985). Memory processing of serial lists by pigeons, monkeys, and people. Science, 229: 287–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed