Evolution, Cognition and Learning
● Some intelligences are part of one region of the brain like spatial awareness is only part
of the hippocampus in squirrels but problems solving uses multiple parts of the brain
● Associative Learning: Involves an animal connecting a behavior to a specific set of
consequences (ex. Learning songs)
● Learning and memory are often studied separately but this separation is not realistic
● Numerosity:
● Why is spatial representation important in animals?
- Spatial representation is important in animals because it lets them understand
where things are, remember places, and move effectively through their
environment.
● Gallup Mark Test/Mirror Self-Recognition: It examines whether an animal can recognize
its own reflection as itself rather than as another individual.
How it works
1. An animal is marked with a visible mark (paint, dye, or sticker) on a part of its body it
normally cannot see (like the forehead).
2. The animal is then given access to a mirror.
3. If the animal uses the mirror to touch, inspect, or try to remove the mark on its own
body, this is taken as evidence of self-recognition.
● Learning: change in an animal caused by a specific experience at a certain time, that is
detectable later in the animal’s behavior
● Functional Incompatibility: refers to a situation where two cognitive or behavioral
functions cannot operate at the same time, because the requirements of one interfere
with or contradict the other.
EXAMPLE” Gallup–Mark (mirror) test:
● To treat a mirror image as another animal, the brain must interpret the image as an
external social stimulus.
● To recognize the image as oneself, the brain must instead map the visual information
onto its own body representation.
These two interpretations are functionally incompatible—the brain cannot simultaneously treat
the reflection as both selfand other.
So when an animal shifts from social responses (threats, gestures) to self-directed behaviors
(touching the mark), it suggests a change in underlying cognitive processing.
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