ABSTRACT
LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to ■ describe how short-term memory and
rehearsal have been studied with animals ■ describe how long-term memory has been
studied with animals ■ explain what is known about animals’
abilities to measure time, to count, and to learn serial patterns
■ discuss different attempts to teach language to animals and evaluate their success
■ describe research on animals’ abilities in the areas of object permanence, analogies, and metacognition
In recent years there has been increasing interest in applying concepts from cognitive psy-chology (which previously focused almost exclusively on people) to animals. Through this interest a new field has emerged, and it has been called animal cognition or comparative cognition. A major purpose of this field is to compare the cognitive processes of different species, including humans. By making such comparisons, researchers hope to find commonalities in the ways different species receive, process, store, and use information about their world. Of course, when psychologists compare species as different as humans, chimps, rodents, and birds, differences in learning abilities are likely to emerge as well, and these differences can be just as informative as the similarities. The comparative approach can give us a better perspective on those abilities that we have in common with other species, and it can also help us understand what makes the human species unique.
