Insects already have instrumental actions. Wasps compact the entrance to the burrow with a stone. In the tropics, ants live on shrubs in leaves glued together with the juice of the larva (adults move the larva along the leaf, like a tube of glue). If it is necessary to transfer liquid, the ants drag it on leaves, having first checked them for suitability. Darwin's Galapagos finches poke the rotten bark with their spines so that the beetles crawl out. Sea otters use stones to remove shells from rocks and use stones to break them for food. The tool activity of great apes is fundamentally different: others have innate tool programs or it is an obligate learning. no matter what two-phase problem involves instrumental activity. Ladygina-Cats experiment: bait in a transparent tube, next to branches, wire, board. Twigs are chewed off, slivers are broken off. Ladygina-Kots: a monkey can make a tool only with the help of tentative actions, there is no type of tool. Firsov: experiments with a group of monkeys on the peninsula of Lake Ladoga. The monkeys were locked in a cage for the night, and they broke off a table leg, took it out and opened the curtain, behind which there were keys, and pulled up the keys. When the need for a stick arose, they ran into the forest to get a stick, holding with their hand the place to which the length of the stick had to be. Goodall showed that Everyday life Monkeys make extensive use of tools. Picking out termites from a termite mound: different lengths of sticks depending on the weather. Monkey weapon activities vary depending on the area and population. Chewed leaves can be used as toilet paper, as sponges for collecting water, and as washcloths. These activities are not species-specific programs. This is an elective course. Skills are transferred when playing with tools, imitating adults. Longitudinal studies in non-interfering populations of Japanese macaques: Observation of learning to wash sweet potatoes. Female children were the first to master it. It took the entire flock 3-4 years to master the procedure. The old ones never learned. “Social skills” - experience is passed on from elders to young animals. A fundamental point: monkeys do not store tools. They can pick up those previously used by other individuals or prepare them in advance, they can force the lowest in the hierarchy to make a weapon, but they will not store them. The higher the monkeys are in development, the blurrier the hierarchy, and this allows them to gain more life experience.
Recent data on the tool behavior of great apes in the natural environment forced researchers to take a fresh look at the paths and origins of the formation weapon activity in early hominids. L.A. Firsov considers this behavior in anthropoids to be an aromorphosis compared to other animals and speaks of the need to revise many canons that hinder the study of anthropogenesis. Chimpanzees are known to use tools to catch ants and termites. The first observations of termite "biting" were made by Jane Goodall in 1963 in Gombe (Tanzania), and then in eight places in Africa. A case of gun activity was reported in Belinga in northeastern Gabon. 30 guns were found, 28 guns were used. All the tools were made from branches, cleared of leaves, small twigs, one tool was made from a vine. Their length is 68-76 cm. All of them were found near termite houses, and only during the season when termites were on the surface; objects were modified and prepared for a specific purpose, “standardized.” To make tools, developed motor skills and experience are required - knowledge of the properties of the object used as a tool (length, thickness, pointedness, etc.), therefore, catching termites and ants begins at a certain stage of postnatal ontogenesis at the age of approximately three years and older. Preparation for this activity goes through three stages:
Manipulative games;
Making tools;
Development of motor skills.
Similar results were obtained by L.A. Firsov in experiments and in natural conditions. Baby chimpanzens began to use objects as tools in different situations at the age of 2-2.5 years. Apparently, it is during this period of ontogenesis that the maturation of the nervous mechanisms that ensure this activity occurs. Ants, unlike termites, do not hunt seasonally, but throughout the year. Tools for fishing ants are similar to those for fishing termites. For example, the technique for making tools for catching ants is as follows:
Breaking off the proximal ends of the branches;
Clearing leaves from the end of a branch or the entire branch;
Straightening the branch;
Breaking off the end of a branch;
Freeing the central vein of the leaf.
The main similarity in the manufacture of tools for catching ants and termites is their “standardization”. Thus, 174 tools were discovered in the form of branches up to 1.5 m long and 1-4 cm thick, cleared of branches and with traces of use on one side; 323 tools were also discovered located near termite mounds. It is possible that the standardization or stereotyping of tools in early hominids could reflect the strength of social inheritance, but it is also possible that the standardization of tools indicates a fairly high level of intelligence. The works of K. and M. Bush describe in detail the technique of cracking the nuts of several types of oil palm with stone “hammers” on a hardwood anvil. Branches or trunks lying on the ground were chosen as an anvil; less often, nuts were cracked directly on the tree. 210 samples of hammers made of granite, laterite and quartz were found. Typically, chimpanzees chose the material for their hammers based on the hardness of the nuts. Since tree trunks are heavy and untransportable, chimpanzees carried nuts and stone hammers. Nuts were carried at a distance of 0.5 to 30 m, hammers, depending on the weight, were transferred: from granite - up to 50 m, from laterite - up to 500 m. The weight of the hammers reached 9 kg. Cracking nuts required more effort than catching termites and ants. The greatest difficulties were noted when using tools directly on a tree. Hammers were carried to wood in the mouth, hands and feet. Nuts different types oil palm trees required a differentiated approach in the selection of tools and certain efforts to break them. For example, Panda nuts require more precise blows of a certain force than Caola nuts. To break them, hammers made of granite were more often used than hammers made of quartz and laterite. The cracking of nuts with stone hammers on stone platforms is also described. Typically, the weight of the hammer stone was 500-850 g, and the size of the platform for breaking nuts was 7.5x12.5 cm. In some populations, cracking of nuts was noted not only with stones, but also with sticks. Thus, when cracking nuts, population variations in tool technique were noted, as in termite fishing. There is a relationship between the diet of the species and the use of tools. The more varied the animal food, the more often the use of tools. A comparative description of tool activity in chimpanzees and early hominids was carried out (Butovskaya and Fainberg, 1993). Tools for obtaining food in chimpanzees are probes for fishing ants and termites, sponges made from leaves, branches, blades of grass, stone hammers, stone anvils. In Australopithecines, perhaps - branches, sticks, bones, animal horns, in Homo habilis - beaten pebbles, unprocessed and processed flakes.
Tool actions of animals and the problem of the origin of labor activity
When comparing the data presented for different groups of animals, the conclusion arises that in monkeys, especially apes, tool actions are more flexible, that they are more inventive in the use and especially in the preparation of tools, their adaptation to the upcoming operation. But just like in other animals, the instrumental actions of monkeys remain entirely within the framework of general biological laws and are one of the forms, and not very significant ones, of biological adaptation to the conditions of the environment in which their life activities take place. Even the most outstanding chimpanzee is not capable of creating something fundamentally new, is not capable of creative work, and, as we have seen, he has nothing to do with it. To maintain its existence even in the most difficult situations, it is enough for it to adaptively modify the existing components of nature, as do all other animals. Man cannot exist without creative work - even in the most primitive forms.
The above applies entirely even to monkeys living with humans in the conditions of civilization, say, to chimpanzees like Toto, who have adopted a lot from humans and learned a lot from him. Even when Toto helped the children “create” a dam in a pond, it was nothing more than imitation of the actions of his young playmates: he does not need a dam, but for children it is a useful exercise for developing their work skills. The same is the case with washing handkerchiefs and with other “humanoid” actions of Toto - all of them, in their content, are not necessary to ensure his existence. At best, these are adaptations to living together with a person (like a dog or a cat), but without understanding the true meaning of these actions, much less the origin and social conditionality of human household items, his tools, not to mention understanding the laws of human life and human society.
But does all this mean that monkeys are essentially no different from other animals, from other higher mammals? Of course not. Moreover, only monkeys, and no other animals, could in the distant past become our ancestors, give rise to intelligent beings capable of creatively, consciously building their relationships with nature and systematically creating with their labor something that never existed in it and could not appear as a result process of biological evolution. The primary reason for this is that among all animals, only monkeys have such a perfect grasping organ as the hand.
As we can see, other animals sometimes display remarkable abilities for using tools, and sometimes for making tools and adjusting them, as well as amazing ingenuity - remember the ability of corvids and parrots, the bear Tenu, the elephant Shango... But, with the exception of monkeys, higher vertebrates could not develop towards humans in the process of evolution, because such development was hampered by the limited motor capabilities of their effector organs, especially the limbs.
Many years of studying the motor abilities and behavior of mammals led me to the conclusion that only the thoracic limb of a monkey is capable of simultaneously firmly grasping objects and performing many varied and flexible movements (especially with the fingers), which was necessary for performing the first labor actions. Only such a maximally multifunctional limb could become an organ of full-fledged and varied instrumental actions, and then turn into an organ for using tools. After all, in order to use even the most primitive tool, it is not enough to firmly hold an object in weight and move it in space. To manufacture such a weapon, dozens of different motor operations were required.
As already indicated, among different forms Of the greatest interest in the instrumental activity of monkeys is their use of sticks. V.I. Lenin characterized the pre-human stage of anthropogenesis with precisely this feature when he wrote about “the primitive organization of a herd of monkeys taking sticks” 6 . How can one imagine the transformation of a stick held in a monkey’s hand into a tool?
Without a doubt, this was not a simple process of “growing” from ape tools into human tools. Some light may be shed on this complex problem, perhaps by the results of our comparative analysis behavior of monkeys (mainly baboons) in cage and enclosure conditions. The main attention was paid to the “disinterested” treatment of monkeys with sticks, rods, straight pieces of solid wire, iron rods and other oblong objects of the “stick” type. When kept in cages, monkeys, especially young ones, often and diligently, but without any reward or direct benefit for themselves, performed specific manipulations with such objects, in which elements of synthesis are also found: one end of the object is inserted into a hole or crack in the substrate, after which the free end is intensively swings, bends, turns, bends, etc. Since the monkey handles the object as a lever, we designated such actions as “lever manipulations.” Outwardly, these “lever manipulations” resemble the use of a crowbar, drill, awl or hook. All these actions are performed by monkeys with perseverance and perseverance, which is amazing for monkeys, and last for a very long time.
When kept in an enclosure, lower monkeys perform simple manipulations basically in the same way as monkeys living in cages. At the same time, monkeys in the enclosure react to some inedible objects much weaker than in a cage, or even ignore them completely (in particular, the same wires and iron rods). But what is most striking is that captive monkeys completely lack complex forms of “lever” type manipulation. Despite the presence of all the necessary conditions, not one of the monkeys ever even inserted an object into any hole. Meanwhile, observations of the monkeys were carried out for hours every day for a number of months. The conclusion suggests itself that “leverage manipulations” are observed only when monkeys are kept in cages, which is confirmed by direct observations of animals that were first kept in cages and then transferred to an enclosure.
The absence of “leverage manipulations” in monkeys living in close-to-natural enclosure conditions is obviously explained by the abundance of natural objects suitable for manipulation, which disperse the animals’ attention and stimulate them to quickly change activities. These varied manipulations with objects contain basic motor components and “lever manipulations.”
Under cage conditions, there are almost completely no objects for manipulation, and therefore the normal varied motor activity of monkeys is concentrated on those very few objects that they can have: instead of various scattered manipulations with many objects in nature, animals produce no less diverse, but intense, concentrated , prolonged manipulations with one or a few objects. As a result, the natural need of monkeys to manipulate numerous different objects is compensated in cage conditions by new ones, including “lever manipulations.”
In other words, manifesting themselves only in special, artificial conditions, “lever manipulations” are adaptive motor combinations that ensure the development of new, subtle motor abilities and receptor functions of the monkey’s hand in extreme conditions that are sharply changed compared to natural ones. We have designated these kinds of replacing forms of objective activity with the term “compensatory manipulation.”
It seems to us that the highly developed ability for “compensatory manipulation” played an important role in the evolution of primates and especially in the emergence of human labor activity, in the process of transforming the tool activity of monkeys into labor activity person. One must think that when, at the end of the Miocene, as a result of the rapid reduction of tropical forests, fossil apes - the ancestors of humans - found themselves in open spaces, in an environment incomparably more monotonous and poorer in objects for manipulation than in the tropical forest, something similar happened to them: and in our monkeys, who find themselves in the sharply depleted environment of an empty cage.
Current conditions tropical forest When living in trees, the need for constant handling of various objects had to be compensated for in new, extreme conditions. And just as in extreme conditions of cage keeping, an animal switches its motor activity from more superficial handling of many objects to more in-depth manipulation of a few single objects, and at the same time, scattered motor elements are concentrated and more complex manipulation movements are formed, so in survivors In the open spaces of monkeys, compensatory forms of motor activity arose, leading to an exceptionally strong concentration of elements of the psychomotor sphere. Moreover, with the transition to bipedal walking, the forelimbs turned into organs for manipulating objects. Compensatory movements were consolidated and filled with new biological content - obtaining food and protecting from enemies with the help of foreign objects, i.e., they acquired a tool function. At the same time, they had to merge with the already existing tool activity, which was probably fundamentally the same kind as that of modern wild anthropoids, but perhaps even more developed. All this created the possibility of the emergence of a qualitatively new, hitherto unprecedented form of activity - labor activity.
Compensatory manipulation and its transformation into instrumental activity of a higher order constituted, presumably, the main content of the prehistory of anthropogenesis, and this applies, of course, not only to the handling of sticks by our animal ancestors, but also with stones and other objects. It is also necessary to emphasize that this is not the only biological factor in the extremely complex process of the emergence and development of man. However, with all the diversity of factors, the root cause of all the distinctive mental abilities of monkeys, the progressive development of their brain, and at the same time the direction of evolution towards humans was ultimately the noted specific morphofunctional features of their thoracic limbs and the ability to develop complex forms of compensatory manipulation. It can be assumed that if fossil apes had not had this ability and if it had not been for those great changes in nature that led them to the impoverished environment of open spaces, then, despite all other prerequisites, the ape would never have turned into a person.
TOOL ACTIVITY - animals, use by animals. objects (stones, sticks, twigs, etc.) as a tool to perform a specific task. O. d. is described in certain birds and mammals. The Galapagos woodpecker finch uses a thorn, which it holds in its beak, to extract insects from crevices in the bark of a tree. A vulture breaks the thick shell of an ostrich egg with a stone. Sea otters with strong mollusk shells also arrive. The chimpanzee removes termites from the opening of the termite mound using a thin twig and crushes the nut shell with a stone. Both the woodpecker finch and the chimpanzee are able to choose among several. select spikes or twigs suitable for the occasion or shorten the only one available to the required length. However, not a single animal is capable, like man, of creating another tool with the help of a tool.
The use of tools by animals is often considered as an indicator of extraordinary mental abilities, however, some features of the instrumental activity of “our little brothers” cast doubt on the validity of such assessments. The ability to use tools does not always correlate with intelligence and, moreover, varies greatly among different individuals within the same species. The instrumental activity of animals differs from human activity in the very rapid formation of stable associations and ritualization, which is manifested in the persistent reproduction of a sequence of actions once found, even if they have lost their meaning under changed circumstances.
Tool activity is widespread among mammals, and not only among monkeys. Thus, elephants use branches to drive away flies, and if the broken branch is too large, they lay it on the ground and, holding it with their foot, tear off a part of the required size with their trunk. Some rodents use pebbles to loosen and scrape away soil when digging burrows. Sea otters (sea otters) tear off mollusks attached to rocks using large stones - “hammers”, and other, smaller stones are used to break shells (lying on its back on the surface of the water, the animal places an anvil stone on its chest and hits it with a shell ). Bears are capable of knocking fruits from trees using sticks; The use of stones and blocks of ice by polar bears to kill seals has been recorded.
22. The highest level of the perceptual psyche: representatives and locomotor development
This group includes cartilaginous and bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and all other animals.
Features of animals at this stage:
Locomotion: varied, and in animals on land, due to the complexity of motor tasks, it is more advanced.
Manipulation: educational value. As specialization occurs, some of the functions of the forelimbs are transferred to the oral apparatus. Multifunctionality of the forelimbs.
Arthropods already have comfortable behavior (flies clean themselves with their paws), but here it is much more diverse and individual.
The ability to visual generalization, perception and recognition of shape. The severity is different in lower and higher vertebrates.
Communication: diversity and differentiation. Optical communication: “dialogues” pos. Acoustic communication: voice, whistling of wings during flight, tapping on the trunk. Individualization of communication.
Cartilaginous fish: sharks can navigate by certain properties of an object: they smell blood at a distance of several kilometers. There are two types of sharks - catrans and catsharks, similar in structure, but different in learning ability.
Reptiles are more mobile than amphibians. Plasticity of behavior. Mostly turtles were studied. They distinguish shape, vertical and horizontal stripes (70-80 trials), but they are not able to solve tasks to identify the abstract feature “different” (3rd image: 2 identical, 1 different). Learning one sign, no ability to transfer. Experience cannot be used to solve other problems of the same type. Maze: Turtles learn to navigate a 4-6 dead-end maze because in nature they encounter similar situations (burrows). Extrapolation: overcoming an obstacle + the ability to predict the direction of movement of food. Not all - about half of the turtles, and the land ones are better. This group, compared to amphibians, is more progressive (NS and lifestyle), therefore the ability to learn is better developed, although there are disadvantages.
In birds, the relationship with the environment is more complex and varied; birds are much more mobile and active all year round(warm-blooded), relationships in the field of nutrition are determined by the food items that the species uses. In some species, food items are large animals, the process of capturing which is very difficult. Some birds have learned to use primitive tools for cutting food (cacti, sticks, stones). Relationships in the area of caring for offspring are also more complex. Choosing a place for a nest, protecting the territory, feeding and training chicks - in these areas, innate and acquired elements of behavior are closely related. For the first time, birds can enrich their experience through observation. Vulture chicks explore rocks as soon as they begin to walk. Corvids have locomotor play depending on living conditions. This game is especially varied in a city environment, where birds can use objects: rolling, taking away. Locomotor-manipulative game: a crow throws a stone down a drainpipe and tries to catch it below. Exploratory behavior is developed (it is sometimes difficult to distinguish it from manipulative play, since one often develops into the other). In experimental situations, birds easily learn various instrumental actions; these skills are formed very quickly (up to 10 combinations).
23. The simplest types of regulation in animal behavior: taxis and tropisms
Taxis (from the Greek taxis - arrangement in order) are orienting components of behavioral acts, innate methods of spatial orientation towards favorable (positive taxis) or unfavorable (negative taxis) environmental conditions. In plants, similar reactions are expressed in changes in the direction of growth (tropism). Based on the modality of effects, photo-, chemo-, thermotaxis, etc. are distinguished. The taxis of unicellular and many lower multicellular animals are represented by orthotaxis (changes in the speed of movement) and clinotaxis (changes in the direction of movement by a certain angle). In animals with a developed central nervous system and symmetrically located sense organs, it is also possible to actively select the direction of movement and maintain this direction (topotaxis). They are permanent components of even the most complex forms of behavior.
Tropisms (from the Greek tropos - turn, direction) - movements (growth) of plants in certain directions caused by the unilateral influence of environmental factors (light, gravity, chemical substances etc.). An attempt to explain the behavior of organisms with a nervous system on the basis of tropisms was made by J. Loeb, whose concept, based on the principles of mechanistic determinism, turned out to be scientifically untenable .
1. Examples of instrumental actions of animals of different species in nature and in experiments
| Instincts | "Insight" | Training and traditions |
| Woodpecker Finches: | Chimpanzee: | Chimpanzee: |
| catching insects with sticks | - construction of towers; | - “snatching” of termites; |
| - threat of canisters; | ||
| - use of sticks; | - breaking nuts with stones on anvils; | |
| California sea otters: | - escapes from cells; | |
| - extinguishing fire | ||
| breaking shells with stones | Jays: | Macaques: |
| making paper “bundles” for getting food | - potato washers; | |
| New Caledonian jackdaws: | ||
| - crabeaters | ||
| making “hooks” for catching insects |
In table 1 shows some examples of instrumental actions of animals of different natures. They illustrate the idea that behavioral acts that are similar in external manifestation may be based on different mechanisms - instinct, learning, reason (see 1.2). The relative weight of each of these factors may vary depending on many circumstances, even if the end result looks the same outwardly (Krushinsky, 1986). Therefore (in accordance with the “canon of C. L. Morgan”) this or that manifestation of instrumental activity can be attributed to acts of thinking only after careful analysis.
These facts demonstrate the complexity and heterogeneity of such a form of animal behavior as tool activity. These acts, similar in appearance, may be based on fundamentally different mechanisms:
emergency solution in a new situation (“insight”);
learning by trial and error and imitation of relatives;
execution of a species-specific (instinctive) program.
6. Methods developed by L.V. Krushinsky to study the ability of animals to search for bait that disappears from sight.
The experiments discussed above convincingly demonstrated the ability of anthropoids to purposefully use tools in accordance with a “mental plan.” This ability can be considered as a manifestation of elementary thinking.
At the same time, the methods described above for analyzing animal problem solving had certain limitations:
the results of such experiments were purely descriptive, and subjectivity in their interpretation was almost inevitable;
when repeating the experiment, the question invariably arose that the animal was not solving the problem anew, but was stereotypically applying the experience acquired in the previous test;
such techniques were practically impossible to use in experiments on non-primate animals, and therefore excluded the possibility of comparative analysis necessary to answer the question of how widely the rudiments of thinking are represented in more primitively organized animals (see 1.3).
Answering the last question required a different methodological approach. To study it, universal tests were needed that could be offered to different animals and at the same time obtain results suitable for quantitative assessment, statistical processing and obtaining comparative characteristics of different species.
Such methodological approaches were created independently of each other by two scientists - G. Harlow and L. V. Krushinsky. G. Harlow (see 3.3.2) in the 50s proposed a method for comparative assessment of the higher cognitive functions of animals, which makes it possible to find out whether animals grasp the general principle underlying their decision, i.e., as the author puts it, whether they are developing a “learning mindset.”
G. Harlow's attempt was successful. Using his test, it was indeed possible to study a wide variety of animals under almost standard conditions and characterize the dynamics of their learning using quantitative parameters. However, Harlow's method made it possible to characterize mainly one aspect of animal thinking - the ability to generalize.
L. V. Krushinsky proposed universal testing methods and undertook a broad comparative study of the ability of animals for another type of elementary thinking - solving urgent problems for which they do not have a ready-made program.
In contrast to the tasks described above, in which it was necessary to reach a distant but visible target, a significant part of the methods proposed by L.V. Krushinsky for studying the rudiments of animal thinking are based on searching for bait, which in one way or another disappears from view as soon as the animal began to eat it. In this they differed from the previously discussed techniques, in which the target was always “within the visual field.” Therefore, solving problems in Krushinsky’s methods should have been carried out not under the control of external stimuli, but by operating with the “image of a disappeared bait” (The methods are described in more detail in the book by L. V. Krushinsky “Biological foundations of rational activity” (1986)..
Let us repeat the definition of thinking (rational activity of animals) given by L.V. Krushinsky, which he called “working”:
“The ability of an animal to grasp empirical laws connecting objects and phenomena of the external world, and to operate with these laws in a new situation for it to build a program of adaptive behavioral act.”
6.1. The concept of “empirical laws” and an elementary logical problem.
L.V. Krushinsky introduced the concept of an elementary logical problem, i.e. a task that is characterized by a semantic connection between its constituent elements. Thanks to this, it can be solved urgently, at the first presentation, through a mental analysis of its conditions. Such tasks by their nature do not require preliminary trials with inevitable errors. Like the problems discussed in Sect. 5, they can serve as an alternative to both Thorndike’s “problem box” and the development of various systems of differentiation SD. Differentiating UR, more precisely, the order of changing reinforcement in the course of their development, are not connected for the animal with the “natural” logic of events in the external world. That is why they cannot be solved except gradually, with repeated trials and reinforcement of correct reactions.
Distinctive feature Krushinsky's tests is that their solution requires (according to his definition) operating with so-called “empirical laws”. This means that the subject to analysis are those properties of objects and phenomena that are inherent in them due to natural physical laws and with which the animal constantly encounters in life.
Using the terminology of cognitive psychology, we can say that these “laws” are part of the “cognitive map”, or “figurative picture of the animal world”, i.e. the system of knowledge that it accumulates throughout life. The necessity and fruitfulness of using such tests was pointed out by D. Premack (1983), calling this form of thinking in animals “natural reasoning”, in contrast to their ability to generalize and make inferences.
Tests for studying the ability to generalize and make inferences are organized in such a way that their conditions and structure are quite arbitrarily determined by the experimenter and are completely unrelated to natural patterns. This also applies to the Revesh-Krushinsky test, where the algorithm for changing the position of the bait is set arbitrarily by the experimenter and has no connection with the processes in the animals’ natural environment (see 7), or the formation of a learning mindset in Harlow’s tests.
The basic forms of animal cognitive activity have been partially described in Chap. 3. Listed below are the most important empirical laws, the knowledge of which, as L.V. Krushchinsky wrote, is necessary for an animal to solve a number of logical problems.
1. The law of “indisappearability” of objects (object permanence). Animals are able to retain memory of an object that has become inaccessible to direct perception. Animals that “know” this empirical law more or less persistently search for food that has somehow disappeared from their field of vision (for a description of the behavior of mammals in the delayed reaction test, see 3.1). Many birds also have the idea of “indisappearability”. Thus, crows and parrots are actively looking for food, which in front of their eyes is covered with an opaque glass or fenced off from them with an opaque barrier. Unlike these birds, pigeons and chickens do not operate with the law of “indisappearability” or operate to a very limited extent. This is reflected in the fact that in most cases they hardly try to look for food after they stop seeing it.
The idea of the “indisappearability” of objects is necessary for solving all types of problems associated with finding bait that has disappeared from view.
2. The law associated with movement is one of the most universal phenomena of the surrounding world, which any animal encounters, regardless of lifestyle. Each of them, without exception, from the very first days of life observes the movements of parents and siblings, predators that threaten them, or, conversely, their own victims.
At the same time, animals perceive changes in the position of trees, grass and surrounding objects during their own movements.
This creates the basis for the formation of the idea that the movement of an object always has a certain direction and trajectory.
Knowledge of this law underlies the solution of the extrapolation problem (see 5.5.2).
3. Laws of “accommodation” and “movability”. This means that based on the perception and analysis of the spatial and geometric features of surrounding objects, animals “know” that some three-dimensional objects can contain other three-dimensional objects and move with them.
In the laboratory of L.V. Krushinsky, two groups of tests have been developed with the help of which one can evaluate the ability of animals of different species to operate with the indicated empirical laws in a new situation. Schemes of these experiments are presented below (see 6.3).
As Krushinsky believed, the laws he listed do not exhaust everything that can be available to animals. He assumed that they also operated with ideas about the temporal and quantitative parameters of the environment, and planned the creation of appropriate tests. Animals are indeed capable of assessing quantitative and even numerical parameters of stimuli (see Chapter 5).
Many animals, including monkeys, select stimuli of larger area and volume in preference tests. Apparently, they can also, without special training, perceive and compare stimuli that differ in the number of elements. Crows and pigeons, for example, without any preliminary preparation, choose a feeder containing a larger number of grains or mealworm larvae. In both cases, the test is conducted in a "free choice" situation, where the birds eat any bait they choose and the monkeys receive any stimulus they choose.
The methods for comparative study of rational activity using elementary logical tasks proposed by L.V. Krushinsky (1986) and described below are based on the assumption that animals grasp these “laws” and can use them in a new situation. The problems are structured in such a way that an emergency solution is possible, adopted in a logical way, in accordance with the underlying principle, and without requiring preliminary training using the trial and error method.
6.2. A method for studying the ability of animals to extrapolate the direction of movement of a food stimulus that disappears from the field of view (“extrapolation task”).
Extrapolation is understood as the ability of an animal to extend a function known on a segment beyond its limits. L.V. Krushinsky proposed several elementary logical problems for studying this ability.
The most widespread is the so-called “screen experiment” (Fig. 12). In this experiment, an opaque barrier is placed in front of the animal - a screen (length - about 3 m, height 1 m). In the center of the screen there is a vertical slit through which two feeders are visible, which at the beginning of the experiment were located directly in front of the slit. The feeders move apart as soon as the animal begins to eat, but it can see the initial part of their path until they disappear behind the transverse barriers-valves. After a few seconds, the feeders disappear from view, so the animal no longer sees their further movement and can only imagine it mentally.
Rice. 12. Study of the ability to extrapolate in experiments with a screen.
A - general view of the installation for experiments with predatory mammals, rabbits and birds (drawing by T. Nikitina); B - chamber for experiments with mice (explanation in the text).
Behind the gap there are two feeders: one with food, the other empty. This is done in order to create an alternative choice for the animal. In addition, if two feeders are moving, the animal will not be able to find food based on the sound of movement.
Experiments with rodents are conducted somewhat differently. The second feeder is also filled with food (drinkers with milk). This feeder is either covered with a net (in experiments with rats) or (in experiments with mice) placed so that the animal does not see it. This allows you to “equalize the odors” coming from the bait on both sides of the chamber, and thereby prevent the fish from finding food using the sense of smell. The experimental chamber for studying the ability to extrapolate in mice (Fig. 12B) is designed so that the animal remains in it in the intervals between presentations of the task. In one of the walls of the chamber (1) in the middle of its length at floor level there is a hole (2), giving the animal access to the drinking bowl (3) and allowing him to see the initial stage of its movement. The control drinker (4) moves in the opposite direction. Using a special lever (5), they can be moved to the side holes (6). “Walking around the screen” in this installation option is moving the animal to the right or left and approaching one of the side holes. Trajectory (7) shows the path of the mouse when solving the problem correctly.
To solve the extrapolation problem, the animal must imagine the trajectories of movement of both feeders after disappearing from the field of view and, based on their comparison, determine which side to go around the screen to get food.
The ability to solve this problem is manifested in many vertebrates, but its severity varies significantly among different species.
The main characteristic of an animal’s ability to engage in rational activity is the results of the first presentation of a task, because when they are repeated, the influence of some other factors is also involved. In this regard, to assess the ability to solve a logical problem in animals of a given species, it is necessary and sufficient to conduct one experiment on a large group. If the proportion of individuals who correctly solved the problem the first time it was presented reliably exceeds the random level, it is considered that animals of a given species or genetic group have the ability to extrapolate (or to another type of rational activity).
As the studies of L.V. Krushinsky showed, animals of many species (mammals of prey, dolphins, corvids, turtles, pasik rats, mice of some genetic groups) successfully solved the extrapolation problem. At the same time, animals of other species (fish, amphibians, chickens, pigeons, most rodents) walked around the screen purely by chance (Fig. 13A).
When a task is presented repeatedly, the animal's behavior depends not only on its ability (or inability) to extrapolate the direction of movement, but also on whether it has remembered the results of previous decisions. In view of this, data from repeated experiments reflect the interaction of a number of factors, and in order to characterize the ability of animals in a given group to extrapolate, they must be taken into account with certain reservations.
Repeated presentations make it possible to more accurately analyze the experimental behavior of animals of those species that poorly solve the extrapolation task at its first presentation (which can be judged by the low proportion of correct solutions, which does not differ from the random 50% level). It turns out that most of these individuals behave purely randomly and when the task is repeated. At very large number presentations (up to 150), animals such as, for example, chickens or laboratory rats, gradually learn to more often walk around the screen on the side in which the food has disappeared. In contrast, in well-extrapolating species, the results of repeated applications of the task may be somewhat lower than the results of the first, although they continue to reliably exceed the chance level (for example, in foxes and dogs, Fig. 13B). The reason for this decrease in test scores may apparently be the influence of various behavioral tendencies that are not directly related to the ability to extrapolate as such. These include a tendency to spontaneously alternate runs, a preference for one of the sides of the installation, characteristic of many animals, etc. In the experiments of Krushinsky and his colleagues, some animals (for example, corvids and carnivorous mammals) showed manifestations of fear of the experimental environment, often accompanied by chaotic walks around the screen, regardless of the direction of movement of the food.
Rice. 13. Solving the extrapolation problem.
A - the success of solving the problem of extrapolation by animals of different taxonomic groups when it was first presented; along the ordinate - the proportion of correct decisions as a percentage (the plane corresponds to the 50% random level of correct decisions); B - averaged success curves for solving a problem when it is repeatedly presented by animals of different taxonomic groups (according to Krushinsky, 1986). On the ordinate axis - as in case A, on the abscissa axis - the numbers of presentations.
The question of the influence of different experimental behavioral strategies on the manifestation of the ability to extrapolate was analyzed in detail using a unique model - two pairs of mouse strains with the Robertsonian translocation on different genetic backgrounds (Poletaeva, 1998). It turned out that this ability also depends on the genotype (see also Chapter 9).
Using the extrapolation test, which allows for precise quantitative assessment of the results of its solution, a broad Comparative characteristics development of the rudiments of thinking in vertebrates of all main taxonomic groups, their morphophysiological basis, some aspects of formation in the process of onto- and phylogenesis, i.e. almost the entire range of questions, the answer to which, according to N. Tinbergen (Tinbergen, 1963), is necessary for a comprehensive description of behavior.
6.3. Methods for studying the ability of animals to operate with spatial and geometric features of objects.
Analysis of spatial characteristics is necessary in many situations that animals encounter in their natural habitat. Tolman's (1997) experiments demonstrated the ability of animals to learn in a maze by forming and remembering a mental “spatial map” (see 3.4). This ability is being intensively studied at present.
Elements of spatial thinking in monkeys were also discovered in the experiments of W. Köhler. He noted that in many cases, outlining the path to reach the bait, the monkeys first compared, as if “estimating” the distance to it and the height of the boxes proposed for “construction”. Understanding the spatial relationships between objects and their parts is a necessary element of more complex forms of instrumental and constructive activity of chimpanzees (Ladygina-Kots, 1959; Firsov, 1987).
Spatial features also include the geometric properties of objects (for example, shape, presence or absence of symmetry, dimension). Their analysis is associated with the empirical laws of “containment” and “movability” of volumetric (three-dimensional) objects, which can contain each other and mix, being one in the other.
The task of operating with the empirical dimension of figures (EDDF). L. V. Krushinsky (1986) proposed a test to assess one of the forms of spatial thinking - the ability of an animal, in search of bait, to compare objects of different dimensions: three-dimensional (volumetric) and two-dimensional (flat).
The essence of the test is that a three-dimensional bait can be placed (and hidden) only in a three-dimensional (VP) figure, but not in a flat (PF) figure, so the animal must choose the FP.
It was called the test for “operating with the empirical dimension of figures” or the test for “dimensionality” (Dashevsky, 1977; 1979).
This term was introduced to characterize the proposed problem because the so-called "plane figure", although it had minimal thickness, was in fact also three-dimensional. However, since the thickness ratio flat figure and the size “in depth” of the three-dimensional figure was from 1:40 to 1:100, then when presented in a pair, such figures had clearly different “spatiality” and were empirically assessed as figures of different dimensions. The shape of the figures that were given to the animal for comparison was selected so that the flat one was the frontal projection of the three-dimensional one.
To successfully solve the problem on the EDRF, animals must master the following empirical laws and perform the following operations:
mentally imagine that a bait that has become inaccessible to direct perception does not disappear (the law of “indisappearance”), but can be placed in another volumetric object and move with it in space (the laws of “containment” and “movability”);
evaluate the spatial characteristics of figures;
using the image of the disappeared bait as a standard, mentally compare these characteristics with each other and decide where the bait is hidden;
throw off the voluminous figure and take possession of the bait.
Initially, experiments were carried out on dogs, but the experimental methodology was complex and unsuitable for comparative studies. B. A. Dashevsky (1972) designed a setup that can be used to study this ability in any species of vertebrates, including humans.
It is a table, in the middle part of which there is a device for expanding rotating demonstration platforms with figures. The animal is on one side of the table, the figures are separated from it by a transparent partition with a vertical slit in the middle. On the other side of the table is the experimenter. In some experiments, the animals did not see the experimenter: he was hidden from them behind a glass partition with one-way visibility.
The experiment is set up as follows (Fig. 14). A hungry animal is offered bait (1), which is then hidden behind an opaque screen-box (2). Under its cover, the bait is placed in a volumetric figure (VP), for example a cube, and a flat figure (PF), in this case a square (projection of a cube onto a plane), is placed next to it. Then the screen is removed, and both figures, rotating around their own axis, are moved apart in opposite directions using a special device (3). To get the bait, the animal must knock over the three-dimensional figure (4).
The experimental procedure made it possible to repeatedly present the task to the same animal, but at the same time ensure the maximum possible novelty of each presentation.
Rice. 14. Experiment with a crow on operating with the empirical dimension of figures (drawing by T. Nikitina).
To do this, each time the animal was offered a new pair of figures, different from the others in color, shape, size, method of construction (plane-sided and bodies of rotation) and size (Fig. 15).
Examples of individual “accumulation curves” demonstrating the dynamics of success in solving a problem on the EDRF are given in Fig. 16. On these curves, the correct solution to the problem - the choice of a three-dimensional figure - is depicted by a straight line segment directed at an angle of 45° upward along the abscissa axis, the choice of a flat figure - by the same “step down”, the lack of choice - by a horizontal segment. Monkeys, dolphins, bears and corvids successfully solve this problem. Both at the first presentation of the test and during repeated tests, they choose predominantly a three-dimensional figure. In contrast, predatory mammals and some corvid birds react to figures purely by chance and only after dozens of combinations they gradually learn to make the right choices.
These experiments made it possible to significantly clarify the picture of differences in the levels of development of the rudiments of thinking in animals of different taxonomic groups.
Of particular importance is the fact of similarity in the solution of this test in corvids and the most highly organized mammals - lower monkeys, dolphins, and also bears, while most other predatory mammals do not solve it. The same differences between them were found in terms of the formation of a learning attitude (see 3.3.3) and preverbal concepts (see 5.5.4).
Rice. 15. A set of figures used in the test for operating with the empirical dimension of figures (according to Dashevsky, 1972). The figures varied in shape and color.
1 - yellow; 2 - pale yellow; 3 - dark gray; 4 - green; 5 - unpainted; 6 - blue; 7 - blue; 8 - dark green; 9 - yellow; 10 - blue; 11 - silver; 12 - green; 13- gray; 14 - burgundy; 15 - blue-green; 16 - red; 17 - orange; 18 - light gray; 19 - black; 20 - gray-blue; 21 - raspberry; 22 - dark pink; 23 - white; 24 - raspberry; 25 - gold; 26 - purple; 27 - unpainted; 28 - light pink; 29 - unpainted; 30 - black.
Despite the fundamental differences in the structure of the brains of mammals and birds (the absence of a new cortex in birds), the most highly developed representatives of both classes achieve similar, fairly high levels of development of elementary thinking.
Control experiment. The scheme of the problem of operating with dimension made it possible, on its basis, to develop a fundamentally important control experiment - an alternative to the logical problem. In this case, all the “external attributes” of the experience are preserved, with the exception of the actual logical structure of the test.
The problem proposed in such a control experiment cannot be solved at the first presentation by “understanding” its meaning. Which choice is correct can only be established during successive presentations of the test (Dashevsky, 1979). Let us explain this with the example shown in Fig. 17. At the top left (A) (as in Fig. 14) is a diagram of the initial test for EDRF. In the control experiment (B, C), the demonstration platforms (2), on which in the actual experiment on the OERF the animal was shown the bait (1), and then the figures (4 and 5) were installed, were replaced by feeders of the same diameter (3). Reinforcers can be placed in any of the feeders, and it can be covered with a lid with an OF (as in Fig. 17B) or PF (as in Fig. 17B) attached to it.
Rice. 16. Success in solving the problem of operating with the empirical dimension of figures by animals of different species.
A - examples of “accumulation curves”. On the ordinate axis - the difference between the number of correct and incorrect decisions, on the abscissa axis - the numbers of presentations; B - averaged curves for solving the problem of operating with the empirical dimension of figures and the control test. The y-axis is the proportion of correct choices; on the abscissa axis - numbers of presentations
Rice. 17. Schemes of experiments on operating with the empirical dimension of figures (A), control experiments on developing a differentiated UR for the presentation of OF and PF (B, C) and on differentiating two volumetric figures of different sizes (D) (see text; according to Dashevsky, 1979) .
In this modification, the control task loses its unambiguous solution, since the bait can be found with equal probability in both one and another feeder (whereas in the GERF task it could only be hidden in the OF).
In this version of the task, the same visual stimuli were used: the same set of OF and PF as in the GERF task (Fig. 15). In one group of individuals of each species (dogs, cats, corvids), the choice of OF was reinforced, in the other - by PF. In both cases, at the first presentations, the animals of both groups chose the figures purely by chance, and only gradually, after dozens of combinations, they began to choose the reinforced figure more often, i.e. developed a differentiated UR. It should be noted that, as in the GERF task, each time the animal was presented with a new pair of figures, which differed from the previous ones in all secondary characteristics, except for one: one figure was flat and the other three-dimensional. Thus, the procedure corresponded to the development of a differentiated UR for the generalized trait “dimension” (see 3.3 and 5.5).
As Fig. 16B, the dynamics of learning differentiation differs significantly from the dynamics of solving a problem on the OERF. It is comparable to that which is characteristic of animals that perform poorly on the EDRF test (for example, dogs) and has nothing to do with the dynamics of reactions in animals that cope well with the task (monkeys, dolphins, corvids).
In this way, clear differences in the behavior of animals were demonstrated for the first time when solving elementary logical problems and when developing differentiated UR, i.e. tasks where there is no logical structure (Dashevsky, Detlaff, 1974; Dashevsky, 1979; Krushinsky et al., 1981).
Animals capable of solving the “dimensionality” problem react correctly even in the first presentations of the test. With a task that has the same external features, but requires the development of a differentiated UR, correct answers appear after dozens of presentations.
The task is to find bait in two three-dimensional figures of different volumes. The successful solution of the GERF test allowed us to assume that corvids may also have access to other tasks based on operating with the idea of the geometric properties of objects. To test this assumption, a test can be used in which two OFs are used, identical in shape and color, but significantly different in volume. Due to this, although both of them have the property of “accommodation,” only one of them can accommodate a given bait, since its volume exceeds the volume of the feeder by 2-4 times, and the volume of the second figure is comparable to it (Fig. 17D).
To solve this test, it is necessary not only to qualitatively evaluate the figures based on their dimensions, but also to make a quantitative comparison of their parameters. In this regard, a task with two OFs can be considered as a combined test that requires operating with two stimulus parameters at once - spatial-geometric and quantitative. It turned out that when the task was first presented, the birds chose both figures with equal probability, but when it was repeated (from 6 to 10 times), they chose the larger figure significantly more often.
The experiments were carried out on 20 birds that had different experiences in participating in the experiments: 10 of them had previously successfully solved the task on the OERF, 5 birds could not cope with this task, and another 5 had not been previously tested at all. In their behavior when solving this task, as well as the task on the GERF, significant individual differences were revealed: 7 birds (out of 20) significantly more often chose the larger EF (on average in 87% of cases); 5 birds chose the larger figure, but this preference was not significant (approximately 65%); 4 birds chose both figures equally often, and 2 birds showed a preference for the smaller figure.
These individual characteristics of the birds when solving this test corresponded to the indicators of solving the test for the EDRF. The higher they were in the GERF test, the easier these birds coped with “figures of different sizes.” However, the ability to solve the main test for operating with dimension is a necessary condition, but not sufficient for solving the second one.
As already indicated, the proposed mechanism for solving such tests is a mental comparison of the spatial characteristics of the figures available when choosing and the bait that is absent at the time of choice, which serves as a standard for their comparison (Dashevsky, 1979). Experiments using two OFs, of which only one could accommodate a three-dimensional bait, also indicate the participation of the indicated mechanism - mental comparison of the parameters of the figures and the bait that was absent at the time of selection. Since a smaller proportion of individuals solve this problem, we can conclude that it is more difficult for birds than the previous one.
Corvids, dolphins, bears and monkeys are capable of solving elementary logical problems based on operating with spatial and geometric features of objects.
7. Study of the ability of animals to urgently determine the algorithm for changing the position of a hidden bait. Revesh-Kruszynski test.
This test was proposed by J. Revecz (Revecz, 1925) for a comparative assessment of the rational activity of monkeys and children, and later and independently used by L. V. Krushinsky, O. O. Yakimenko and N. P. Popova (1983) to study ontogenesis of human nonverbal thinking. It was assumed that it could be considered as an analogue of the extrapolation task, more suitable for experiments on humans.
The experiment is set up as follows. A row of identical opaque feeders covered with lids is placed in front of the animal (the subjects are shown a row of glasses). For the first time, the bait is placed out of sight of the animal in the first feeder and given the opportunity to find it. The second time (also unnoticed), the bait is placed in the second feeder, then in the third, etc. After the bait is detected in the first (1st presentation) and then in the second (2nd presentation) feeders, the animal already has the necessary and sufficient information to understand where the bait will be hidden the next time the test is presented. In other words, this information is enough to determine the pattern of further movement of the bait: each time it will be in a new place, closest to the previous one (Fig. 18).
Figure 18B shows that the jackdaw (graph on the left) found the bait accurately in presentations from the 8th to the 11th, and in the 7th it was wrong by only one “step”; the Anubis baboon (middle) had sure-fire picks in the 5th and 6th. and also in the 9th and 10th presentations of the test; the gray rat (right) did not make a single unmistakable choice.
Let us recall that the previously discussed tests for extrapolation and GERF are based on the assumption that animals have ideas about the physical laws of the surrounding world. Each such test has a unique solution. At the same time, in this test, the pattern of movement of the bait is set arbitrarily by the experimenter (i.e., you can mix the bait from right to left or vice versa, and also change the “step” of its movement). This task has no direct analogues in the repertoire of animal behavior in natural conditions.
Numerous studies have shown that a person's ability to solve this test - three error-free choices in a row - goes through a long process of formation in ontogenesis and only by the age of 15 reaches the level characteristic of adults. Different subjects use different search strategies when solving a test: random, stereotypical, programmatic (i.e. search in accordance with a certain hypothesis). With age, the proportion of subjects using stereotypical search (i.e., opening all glasses in a row) decreases, and the proportion of those who use their own search program increases.
It is interesting to note that the ability to use their own search program appears in children between the 6th and 7th years of life. During the same period, the frequency of using the stereotypical search strategy noticeably decreased.
The solution to the Revesch-Kruszynski test was studied in corvids, pigeons, rats of several strains, monkeys of various species, as well as several great apes. It turned out that only in isolated and very few cases were animals and birds able to “perfectly” determine the pattern of movement of the bait and find it accurately in several presentations of the task in a row (see Fig. 18B). However, with the exception of pigeons, in animals of all species studied, the choice of feeders during the presentation of the test was reliably non-random. The number of attempts they made to find the bait was significantly less than it should be with a random “walk”.
Certain search strategies (random, stereotypical, or “programmed”) were also discovered when analyzing test solutions by animals of different species. It turned out that everyone had the same strategies in similar proportions. For example, the tendency to stereotypy - opening all feeders in a row - is equally characteristic of all studied species, and optimization of behavior - reducing the number of attempts made when finding food - is about 30% in both great apes and rats.
Analysis of errors made in the process of solving the test indicates that animals of all species look for bait mainly where they found it in previous tests. At the same time, they extremely rarely open new feeders, although the conditions of the task (“bait each time in a new place adjacent to the previous one”) require exactly this.
Among the animal species studied, none of them showed a reliable grasp of the logical structure of the task - the basic rule for moving the bait.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, all animals search for bait not where it should appear, but in the place where it was recently discovered (Pleskacheva et al., 1995; 1998). A histogram of the distribution of erroneous first choices of feeders in relation to the one in which the bait was hidden in a given presentation, shown in Fig. 18B illustrates this fact. On the histogram, the “+” sign indicates “advanced” errors, when the animal is looking for food where it has not yet been found, i.e. ahead of the true position of the bait, the “-” sign indicates cases when the animal begins its search from the feeders, where it found the bait in previous cases. There were significantly more reactions in the latter category.
It was assumed that the solution to this test would be available to animals with the most high level rational activity. However, the results obtained did not confirm this assumption. Even apes solved the problem not in accordance with its principle, but on the basis of a much simpler strategy that rats also use.
Although animals practically do not catch the pattern of movement of the bait, they still use a more primitive, but universal strategy. It allows them to significantly optimize further searches in a new situation and based on the results of just a few bait detections.
8. Studying the ability for emergency integration of previously acquired independent skills.
This type of rational activity of animals became the object of research back in the late 20s - early 30s (Maier, 1929). It can be detected by offering the animal a task that it can solve in a new situation on the basis of previously acquired experience. However, we are not talking about choosing and using one of the “ready-made” ones, i.e. previously developed reactions, but by creating, as formulated by N. Maier (Maier, 1929), a new solution based on specific elements of past ideas or previously formed skills (see also 2.8).
In addition to the experiments of Mayer himself, a good illustration of this approach can be the experiments of the American researcher R. Epstein (Epstein, 1984; 1987; see below). Several such tests were developed in the laboratory of L.V. Krushinsky in the 70s of the 20th century (see below).
Rice. 19. One of the installations proposed by N. Maier for testing the ability of rats to rational activity (Maier, 1929).
8.1. The ability to “reason” in rats.
There are several tests that require immediate integration of previously acquired skills. In Fig. Figure 19 shows a diagram of Mayer's classic experiment for assessing the rudiments of reasoning in rats. In such experiments one can discover the animal's ability to reorganize existing experience.
The setup used in these experiments consists of three tracks (each 244 cm long) diverging from one central point. Each path ends with a table that differs from the others in size, shape and type. Wooden screens are installed on the tables (E1, E2, EZ) so that from one table it is impossible to see what is happening on the others. After the rat had explored all the tables and paths, it was given food, for example on table A. Then the rat was placed on one of the other two tables, for example B, and released. Having reached the center of the installation, the rat could choose one of two paths - to table A (where it was previously fed) or to table B. Before each test, the animal was given the opportunity to inspect the installation. Each time the rat was fed on a different table. With random selection, the percentage of correct decisions is 50%, but in some rats it was much higher. This allowed the author to draw the following conclusion.
Rats are able to combine (integrate) the information they have with each new presentation and make the right choice.
8.2. The task for pigeons is to “get a banana”.
The American researcher R. Epstein (Epstein, 1984; 1987) in a number of works tried to refute what was already firmly established in the 80s. XX century the idea that animals have elementary thinking. In accordance with the views of behaviorists (see 2.4.3), he set out to show that any of the most complex behavior of higher vertebrates, which is considered to be a manifestation of intelligence, is nothing more than the result of the transfer of previously formed skills or another form of application of previously acquired experience. To begin with, Epshtein tried to reproduce on pigeons the experiments described above by V. Köhler, where chimpanzees used sticks or moved boxes to get bait that was visible but out of reach of hands.
For this purpose, the usual instrumental SD was first developed in a pigeon in a Skinner chamber using the method of “successive approximations” (see 3.2.3). The pigeon was given a little grain each time it pecked the manipulator. Then the lever was placed very high - under the ceiling of the chamber, so that the bird could not reach it (the pigeon could not fly in the chamber). However, in the corner of the chamber there was a stand, by moving it, it was possible to easily reach and peck the manipulator (this is exactly how, in V. Köhler’s experiments, a box was placed in the corner of the enclosure, from which a chimpanzee could get a banana hanging under a stream). Over the course of several hours of observation, none of the 11 experimental pigeons, of their own free will, not only tried to move the stand, but did not even touch it.
In other words, the behavior of pigeons was fundamentally different from the activity that apes usually develop to reach a suspended banana (see 5).
Having made sure that the pigeons themselves did not know what to do, they began to develop two SDs, one independently of the other. In some sessions, pigeons were taught to push a stand towards a green target spot on the floor of the chamber, i.e. Such movements were reinforced with food, and the spot was placed each time on a new area of the floor. During this training, the first manipulator was removed from the chamber. In other sessions (they were carried out in parallel and independently from the first), pigeons were trained to climb onto a stand and peck at a manipulator. It is important to note that during these sessions there was no target spot on the floor of the chamber. If the pigeons nevertheless began to move the stand, then they did not receive reinforcement for these movements.
After the pigeons had firmly mastered each of the URs, they were again given the same test as at the beginning, when the stand was located away from the manipulator and there was no target spot on the floor. In this case, 4 pigeons out of 77 solved the problem. Looking first at the manipulator and then at the stand, they began to gradually move it to the right place. Having reached the goal, the pigeons climbed onto the stand, pecked the manipulator and received reinforcement. Let us recall that to form each of the URs, birds required many hundreds of combinations.
Control pigeons were trained to either only climb onto the stand and peck the manipulator, or only move the stand. It turned out that they successfully solved the test only in the second case. Apparently, it is important for them to learn how to push the stand, and they can climb onto it without special training.
The authors considered the behavior of pigeons as a result of the interaction of independently formed conditioned reactions to visual stimuli. They believed that during the test they were experiencing “functional generalization” of skills, as opposed to generalization based on the similarity of the physical features of the stimuli (see 3.1).
Epstein suggested that this behavior was similar to the behavior of monkeys and dogs in solving similar problems and that such processes are similar in animals of different species, but experts in higher cognitive functions of animals strongly disagreed with this. They considered the similarity between the behavior of anthropoids (“insight” in Koehler’s experiments) and pigeons in the situation of “getting a banana” to be purely external, superficial and rude.
Epstein's experiments showed that pigeons are capable of reorganizing previously acquired independent skills.
Let us note that the generally low level of development of the rational activity of these birds greatly limits the possibilities of their use in experiments of this type. The technique (the “getting a banana” task) can be used for a comparative study of rational activity in those species of animals for which other tests of elementary thinking are too difficult.
8.3. Test for emergency matching of stimuli previously associated with different numbers of units of reinforcement: choice on the basis of “more than.”
The following test, built on the same principle as those described above, was developed by Z. A. Zorina (Zorina et al., 1991) in the process of studying the ability of birds to evaluate and operate with quantitative parameters of stimuli. As is known, animals in the process of learning learn information about the amount of reinforcement, despite the fact that this is not provided for by a special procedure. This is evidenced by the fact that increasing the size of the reinforcement makes it possible to speed up the learning process in the maze (Ryabinskaya, Ashikhmina, 1988). Conversely, with a sharp reduction in food portions, previously formed skills are disrupted. It is also known that a variety of animals, when freely choosing, prefer stimuli that are larger than others both in absolute value and in the number of their constituent elements.
The proposed test requires an emergency comparison of the magnitudes of reinforcement associated with different stimuli in a situation new to the bird.
The experiment is set up as follows. During the process of preliminary training, birds develop a series of independent single food-procuring responses (throwing off the lid from the feeder). During this period, birds learn what corresponds to feeders of different colors. certain number units of reinforcement: from 1 to 8 grains of wheat - for pigeons and from 5 to 12 mealworm larvae - for crows. At the end of the preliminary training, the actual tests are carried out, during which feeders are presented in pairs in different combinations (20-25 trials). To make the situation as new as possible for the birds, a new combination of feeders is used in each test, repeating each no more than 3 times per test. (To reduce the possible influence of reinforcement on subsequent results, in half of the trials the bait is placed in both feeders, and the remaining trials are without reinforcement.)
The test itself examines whether birds will choose a feeder previously associated with a large amount of reinforcement, and within what limits they will make such a choice.
Behavior in solving this test, from the authors’ point of view, corresponds to Mayer’s definition, since it is based on an emergency comparison of independently acquired elements of past experience - information about the amount of reinforcement associated with each of the feeders of different colors. During the decision process, the bird must compare this information and carry out a new response - choosing a larger reinforcer.
Birds of both species, across the entire range of sets studied (from 1 to 8 grains or mealworm larvae), on average more often chose the stimulus associated with a large amount of reinforcement. It should be emphasized that for pigeons, the greater the absolute and relative difference between the compared quantities of food, the greater the probability of making the correct choice, i.e. when multiple units of reinforcement have pronounced differences. In crows, the magnitude of the differences between the compared quantities of food influenced the correctness of choice less dramatically.
Thus, it turned out that pigeons also solve this elementary logical problem. Like the “banana task,” it turned out to be one of the very few available to them.
The data obtained using this technique not only revealed the ability to solve another elementary logical problem, but also made it possible to compare it in birds of two different species, i.e. characterize the rational activity of birds in a comparative aspect.
At the same time, these results made a certain contribution to the characterization of the ability of birds to operate with quantitative parameters of the environment (which is sometimes conventionally called “counting”).
It turned out that the choice that a bird makes in a new situation (when it is given a pair of stimuli that were previously always presented separately) is determined by a mental comparison of the number of units of reinforcement corresponding to each of the stimuli. Despite the fact that, according to the experimental conditions, the experimenters did not specifically direct the birds’ attention to this parameter (the number of units of reinforcement), they spontaneously assessed it and remembered it. On this basis, in a new situation, without any preparation, birds make a choice on the basis of “more than.”
The ability of birds to perform such an operation served as the basis for studying the process of symbolization in them, the methodology and results of which are discussed in Chapter. 5 and 6.
Summary.
The considered methods and experimental techniques for studying the elementary rational activity of animals provided rich experimental material for the formation of new ideas about the thinking of animals. In the described methods, the limitations that were characteristic of the methods of studying the thinking of anthropoids used at the beginning of the 20th century were eliminated. These techniques turned out to be universal enough to present animals of a wide variety of species. They can be modified to be presented to the same animal several times, while still maintaining a certain degree of novelty in the situation.
The work of L.V. Krushinsky and his colleagues formed an independent approach to the study of animal thinking, which was based on a number of important principles that had not previously been used in experiments of this kind.
A universal experiment, which, in accordance with the ideas of L.V. Krushinsky, characterizes the rational activity of animals of a given species or a given group, is planned so as to ensure:
the possibility of objective quantitative assessment of results; applicability to representatives of different systematic groups; obtaining comparable results;
the possibility of studying the physiological and genetic foundations of rational activity.
What manifestations of animal thinking can be studied experimentally?
What requirements must be met by tests of rational functioning of animals?
What is tool activity and what mechanisms may underlie it in animals of different species?
What aspects of rational activity are revealed by the tests proposed by L. V. Krushins
They remain the least studied, however, their description, analysis and integration into common system knowledge about cognitive processes is very important. The fact is that the elementary thinking of animals, to a greater extent than other cognitive processes, for example, spatial memory, is related to human non-verbal thinking. Studying the elementary minds of animals will help psychologists find the key to...
All animals, but only those that are characterized by play activity. In a similar way, obviously, the game acts as a milestone in the ontogenesis of behavior /1, 129/. 3. Classification of basic forms of behavior Animal behavior is infinitely diverse in its forms, manifestations and mechanisms. Currently, a large amount of material has been accumulated that characterizes behavior as a combination of different forms...
The results were obtained through the widespread use of genetically characterized animals in laboratory tests, as well as the application of basic methods for analyzing genetic differences. Currently, the study of the cognitive abilities of animals in this test is one of the leading approaches in assessing the behavioral characteristics of transgenic animals and knockout mice. More details on these questions...
And the transition to the use of tools was actually prepared back in the zoological period of the development of our ancestors. 4. Experimental methods for its study. Biological limitations of animal intelligence In the work of Z.A. Zorina “Elementary thinking of birds and mammals: an experimental approach” outlines an original approach to the classification and study of manifestations of thinking or rational...
>> Use of tools and energy
§ 2 5. Use of tools and energy.
Remember
Tool use by animals
Providing the body with energy
Adaptations
Habitat transformation by animals
Tool activity. The vast majority of animal species influence the environment only through their individual qualities (strength, speed, agility) using “personal weapons”: teeth, beaks, claws, etc. (mainly for attack), fast legs, camouflage, durable covers , poison glands, etc. (mainly for protection). These funds help animals work with greater return on energy expenditure: more successfully obtain food, defend themselves from enemies, and build homes. Only a very few species of birds and mammals have learned to increase the efficiency of their work in obtaining food with the help of various objects (bones, sticks, stones, thorns, etc.). Such cases are extremely rare in nature.
Man has greatly lengthened and strengthened his personal natural “weapon” - the hand - with the help of a wide variety of tools for hunting and labor. Ancient people could hunt animals with a spear from a distance of 10-20 m. Modern hunters hunt game with a conventional gun at a distance of 30-50 m, and rifles - up to 100 m and beyond. Powerful space rockets can be used in the future to prevent large asteroids (such as the Tunguska meteorite and larger) from falling to Earth by destroying them (or changing the trajectory of further flight) at a distance of hundreds of thousands of kilometers from our planet (Fig. 90). Among primitive people, tool activity began with the use of ready-made objects (stones, sticks), the quality of which they subsequently learned to improve through primary processing (hewing, chipping, tying). Currently, all tools are specially made by humans.
In natural populations, tool activity is a rare exception. Humanity, on the contrary, exerts the most powerful pressure on nature indirectly, through tools, machines, and mechanisms. This is another important difference between the eco-social ties of modern humanity.
Life support energy. All animals derive energy to maintain life from food, and sometimes even by warming themselves under the rays of the sun. Accordingly, the work they perform is carried out only due to their natural power - muscular strength.
The only exception on the planet is man, who first mastered the reserves of conserved solar energy in the form of organic fuel: wood, coal, oil and gas, and more recently began to use nuclear energy. It is quite obvious that only human development of energy reserves ensured the emergence of industry based on the radical transformation of natural materials (for example, smelting and processing of metals). This unique ability of humanity allowed it to create a powerful production potential that almost completely replaced muscular strength in the functioning of the earth’s life support system for humanity.
The work performed by animals can be aimed at some transformation of the habitat: building nests, digging holes, even constructing dams. But they use the power of only their own muscles, and combining efforts for coordinated actions is possible only within a family or a small group. Therefore, the environment-transforming activity of animals is insignificant and limited only to local areas. Any large-scale results of such micro-transformative work appear after a long time - hundreds or thousands of years.
The powerful energy directed by people to change their environment in order to improve the comfort of their existence is transforming the natural environment more and more quickly: in ancient times - over millennia, in the Middle Ages - over centuries, now - over a few years.
All species on Earth adapt - adapt to their environment, to changing living conditions. Only man, with the help of the energy resources he has mastered, adapts (adapts) his habitat to his own needs, radically and in a short time transforms the nature of the Earth -
Examples and additional information
1. Tool activity has been identified in insects, birds, and mammals. A tool is any foreign object that is used by an animal as an extension of any part of the body (jaws, beak, paw) to achieve a specific goal (most often to obtain food).
The woodpecker finch living on the Galapagos Islands drives insects out of their passages and cracks in tree bark with a thin stick or cactus spine. In Africa predatory bird- the vulture knows how to break the strong shell of ostrich eggs by throwing stones at them with its beak (Fig. 91). Unusual cases of weapon activity have been observed in Florida, USA. Near a crowd of tourists, a blue heron picked up grains of popcorn that were inedible for it and threw them into shallow water, luring fish. In total, about 30 species of birds have been identified that are capable of using tools to obtain food.
Sea otters (sea otters) live in the North Pacific Ocean. Swimming on their backs, they break mollusk shells and shells sea urchins o flat stones that they place on their chests. In Africa, chimpanzees obtain termites by inserting a stalk of grass or a thin twig into a termite mound and then licking the insects off it. They also use sticks to destroy the nests of wild bees and extract honey, pick out larvae from rotten stumps or dig edible roots from the ground. In captivity, chimpanzees use sticks and various types of stands to reach high-hanging fruits (Fig. 92).
2. Occasional use and possibly maintenance primitive people Lightning-ignited fire dates back about 0.5 million years. About 50 thousand years ago, man himself learned to make fire from sparks by striking flint against flint or using friction. About 20 thousand years ago, energy consumption by all people was 10 million times less than it is now. It is due to this million-fold increase in the use of solar energy reserves found and appropriated by man, conserved in organic fuel, that the entire complex of modern life support for humanity has been created and is functioning.
But if none of our distant ancestors, while warming themselves by a tree set on fire by lightning, had thought of throwing a few new branches into the dying fire, we would still be living in caves now.
Questions.
1. What are the main differences between the use of tools by animals and humans?
2. How do animals provide themselves with energy?
3. What are the fundamental features of the energy supply for human life support?
4. Lead additional examples instrumental activity of animals: insects, fish, birds, mammals.
Tasks.
1. Observe the use of foreign objects by wild or domestic animals. For what purpose are they doing this? In which of these cases can manipulation of objects be considered a tool activity, and in which - game ?
2. Give examples of the transformation of the environment by animals and humans known to you (preferably in your area). Compare the forms and scales of this activity.
Topics for discussion.
1. Any modern family can obtain food energy in different ways:
- through direct trophic connections, characteristic of all types of animals and described in detail in the first part of the textbook, without investing additional energy (for example, picking berries in the forest);
- using energy investments in the form of one’s own muscular strength using the simplest tools (for example, cultivating your plot of land with a shovel, pitchfork, hoe, etc.);
- indirectly, using money as energy equivalents (for example, buying ready-made products in a store).
Approximately what portion of food energy does your family receive from each of the methods discussed? 2. Energy investments in the life support of modern humanity continue to increase. Are there limits to this growth? If yes, how are they determined? How soon and how can the increase in mankind's energy supply stop? What will be the consequences?
Chernova N. M., Fundamentals of Ecology: Textbook. days 10 (11) grade. general education textbook institutions/ N. M. Chernova, V. M. Galushin, V. M. Konstantinov; Ed. N. M. Chernova. - 6th ed., stereotype. - M.: Bustard, 2002. - 304 p.
Help for schoolchildren online, Ecology for grade 10 download, calendar and thematic planning
Lesson content lesson notes supporting frame lesson presentation acceleration methods interactive technologies Practice tasks and exercises self-test workshops, trainings, cases, quests homework discussion questions rhetorical questions from students Illustrations audio, video clips and multimedia photographs, pictures, graphics, tables, diagrams, humor, anecdotes, jokes, comics, parables, sayings, crosswords, quotes Add-ons abstracts articles tricks for the curious cribs textbooks basic and additional dictionary of terms other Improving textbooks and lessonscorrecting errors in the textbook updating a fragment in a textbook, elements of innovation in the lesson, replacing outdated knowledge with new ones Only for teachers perfect lessons calendar plan for the year; methodological recommendations; discussion program Integrated LessonsIt was the study of the tool activity of apes that laid the foundation for the problem of thinking in animals. With the development of ethology, the list of species to which the concept of tool activity is applicable has constantly expanded. Among mammals, the main observations concerned Indian(Elephas maximus) And African(Loxidonta africana) elephants, sea otters(Enhydra lutris), various bears. The greatest successes in weapon activity have undoubtedly been achieved by primates, and not only anthropoids. But even fish and insects became the object of study by ethologists in order to understand the origins of tool activity.
In many animals, tool activity is instinctive in nature. Sea otters They are able to use stones to break shells; some birds use twigs or thorns to fish out insects. Let us recall the finches, which, in conditions of abundant food, were deprived of the opportunity to implement foraging behavior with the help of a stick. The use of stones is mainly based on instinctive behavior fingerboard(Neophron pernopterus) for breaking ostrich eggs (Alcock J., 1984).
Birds provide even more numerous examples of tool activity than mammals. Vivid examples are the construction of “gazebos” to attract females bowerbirds, the use of stones, sticks, thorns and other objects by corvids. The construction of complex structures is sometimes considered by evolutionists as compensation for morphological changes due to sexual selection. The “energy” cost of such changes does not seem lower, given the burden of behavioral stereotypes (Reznikova Zh. I., 2005).
Recently, the completely instinctive nature of bird weapon activity has been increasingly called into question. Observations have been recorded that cannot be attributed solely to the manifestation of instinct. The complex relationship between heredity and learning determines the tool activity of woodpecker finches, such a favorite object of ethologists. Learning by imitation plays an important role in this activity, although it is also genetically determined - some species of finches do not have this ability.
It is very difficult to unambiguously imagine the degree of genetic determination of tool activity in one species or another. One can rather talk about a predisposition to the possibility of using tools. This possibility increases with the natural tendency to manipulate objects, which some birds and mammals have. In the implementation of instrumental activity, instinctive, associative and cognitive processes are closely intertwined, and it can be difficult to draw a line between them.
Important factors influencing the results arise from the characteristics of monkey ontogeny, where early experience plays a primary role. Once again we should point out the importance of the critical period in the formation of behavior. This applies both to the range of instinctively determined instrumental activity and to new forms of learning. Even species that do not use tools at all in nature are capable of learning at an early age. Such studies were carried out on marmoset monkeys (family. Callithricidae ) tamarins(Saguinus tamarin). Perhaps the common ancestor of all primates already had a genetic predisposition to tool activity (Reznikova Zh. I., 2005). But after reaching a certain age, monkeys of almost all species lose the ability to learn many skills.
A favorable factor of ontogenesis is the absence of stereotypes “interfering” with cognitive processes. Monkeys form strong stereotypes very easily if any action has been successful. These stereotypes severely block the natural intelligence and tool ingenuity of monkeys. It would not be superfluous to repeat that man is no exception in this regard.
The ability of anthropoids to use tools, as well as to speak language, is not realized in nature. Their “spare mind,” in the figurative expression of A. N. Severtsev, is not used as unnecessary. Only at chimpanzee In natural conditions, tool activity is observed. They often use tools, breaking nuts with stones or fishing for ants with blades of grass. Monkeys acquire these skills at a young age, learning from their elders. Gorillas, orangutans And bonobos In nature, tools are practically not used.
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