ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that identification of similarities and differences between humans and other species provides an opportunity to examine the Turing Test from a different perspective. It shows that the range of conceptual learning in nonhuman animals includes several of the major categories traditionally attributed to humans alone. The most fundamental form of concept learning involves classification according to the perceptual attributes of objects. There is clear evidence that pigeons can sort complex stimuli into basic classes and that the basis for such sorting is similar to that used by humans. At a more advanced level, animals have been shown to be capable of forming “superordinate” classes or functional equivalences. The chapter presents a series of results concerning the cognitive abilities of children, chimpanzees, and monkeys. It addresses the role of symbolic representation and the role of social factors in shaping the expression of abstract relational and analogical cognitive abilities.
