ABSTRACT
The differential-outcomes effect has been observed in appetitive and aversive experiments with several species, and it could provide a tool to enhance learning in children suffering from autism-spectrum disorder. Well-established learning phenomena, including latent learning, show that associative learning takes place even among neutral stimuli. A pervasive assumption in the study of higher cognitive processes in animals is that these phenomena are not reducible to associative processes. An important distinction between cognitive mapping and path integration lies in the point of reference used to make decisions about the path to follow. Chimpanzees also show substantial individual variability in self-recognition. As in the origins of comparative psychology, contemporary research on animal cognition tends to emphasize mental continuity over mental discontinuity. Interpreting the significance of these experiments to an understanding of animal learning requires attention to the evolutionary concepts of homology and homoplasy discussed throughout this book.
