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Do animals have intelligence? General characteristics of the intellectual behavior of animals

Human intelligence

Intelligence (from Latin intellectus - knowledge, understanding, reason) - the ability of thinking, rational knowledge. This is a Latin translation of the ancient Greek concept nous (“mind”) and in its meaning it is identical to it.

The modern definition of intelligence is the ability to carry out the process of cognition and to effectively solve problems, in particular when mastering a new range of life tasks. Therefore, it is possible to develop the level of intelligence, as well as to increase or decrease the efficiency of human intelligence. Often this ability is characterized in relation to tasks encountered in a person’s life. For example, in relation to the task of survival: survival is the main task of a person, the rest for him are only those arising from the main one, or to tasks in any field of activity.

The essential qualities of human intelligence are inquisitiveness and depth of mind, its flexibility and mobility, logic and evidence.

Curiosity- the desire to comprehensively understand this or that phenomenon in significant respects. This quality of mind underlies active cognitive activity.

Depth of mind lies in the ability to separate the important from the secondary, the necessary from the accidental.

Flexibility and agility of mind- a person’s ability to widely use existing experience, quickly explore objects in new connections and relationships, and overcome stereotyped thinking.

Logical thinking characterized by a strict sequence of reasoning, taking into account all the essential aspects of the object under study, all its possible relationships.

Evidence thinking is characterized by the ability to use at the right moment such facts and patterns that convince of the correctness of judgments and conclusions.

Critical thinking presupposes the ability to strictly evaluate the results of mental activity, subject them to critical evaluation, discard a wrong decision, and abandon initiated actions if they contradict the requirements of the task.

Breadth of thinking- the ability to cover the issue as a whole, without losing sight of the initial data of the corresponding task, to see multiple options in solving the problem.

Scientists of various specializations have long been studying human intelligence and intellectual capabilities. One of the main questions facing psychology is the question of whether intelligence is innate or formed depending on the environment. This question, perhaps, concerns not only intelligence, but here it is especially relevant, because intelligence and creativity (non-standard solutions) acquire special value in our age of universal high-speed computerization.

Nowadays we especially need people who are capable of thinking outside the box and quickly, who have high intelligence, to solve the most complex scientific and technical problems, and not only to maintain super-complex machines and automatic machines, but also to create them.

IQ and creativity

Since the end of the 19th century, various quantitative methods for assessing intelligence, degree mental development- with the help of special tests and a certain system of their statistical processing in factor analysis.

Intelligence quotient (abbreviated IQ), an indicator of mental development, the level of existing knowledge and awareness, established on the basis of various test methods. The IQ is attractive because it allows you to quantify the level of intellectual development.

Idea quantification the level of intellectual development of children using a test system was first developed by the French psychologist A. Binet in 1903, and the term was introduced by the Austrian psychologist W. Stern in 1911.

While most intelligence tests have primarily measured verbal ability and, to some extent, the ability to deal with numerical, abstract, and other symbolic relationships, it has become clear that they have limitations in measuring cognitive ability. various types activities.

Currently, tests for determining abilities are complex; among them, the Amthauer test of the structure of intelligence is the most famous. The benefit of the practical application of this test, or more precisely, knowledge of the degree of development of certain intellectual capabilities of a person, makes it possible to optimize the interaction between the manager and the performer in the process of work.

A high IQ (above 120 IQ) does not necessarily accompany creative thinking, which is very difficult to assess. Creative people are able to act in non-standard ways, sometimes contrary to generally accepted laws, and get good results and make discoveries.

The ability to achieve such extraordinary results in unconventional ways is called creativity. Not only do creative people with creativity solve problems in non-standard ways, but they also generate them themselves, struggle with them and as a result solve them, i.e. They find the lever that can “turn the globe over.”

However, lateral thinking is not always creative, it is often just original, so it is really difficult to define creative thinking, much less quantify it.

Animal intelligence

Intelligence in animals is understood as a set of higher mental functions, which include thinking, the ability to learn and communicate. It is studied within the framework of cognitive ethology, comparative psychology and animal psychology.

History of the development of ideas about animal intelligence

The ability of animals to think has been the subject of debate since ancient times. Aristotle, back in the 5th century AD, discovered the ability to learn in animals and even assumed that animals have intelligence. The beginning of a serious scientific study of the intellectual abilities of animals, as well as their psyche in general, was laid by Charles Darwin in his book “The Origin of Species and Natural Selection.” His student John Romens continued his study, which resulted in the book Animal Minds. Romens's approach is characterized by anthropomorphism and lack of attention to methodological rigor. Animal Minds is based on individual cases that seemed worthy of attention to the author, his readers or friends, rather than on systematic, focused observation.

Proponents of this “anecdotal approach” have been severely criticized by the scientific community, mainly due to the unreliability of the method. At the beginning of the 20th century, the exact opposite approach was firmly and permanently established in the sciences of animal behavior. This was associated with the emergence of the scientific school of behaviorism. Behaviorists placed great importance on scientific rigor and the precision of the methods used. But at the same time, they basically excluded the possibility of studying the psyche of animals. One of the founders of behaviorism is Conwy Lloyd Morgan, a British psychologist. He, in particular, owns the famous rule known as the “Canon of Morgan”.

... this or that action cannot in any case be interpreted as the result of the manifestation of any higher mental function if it can be explained on the basis of the presence in the animal of an ability occupying a lower level on the psychological scale

Intellectual abilities of animals

The intellectual abilities of animals other than humans include the ability to solve non-trivial behavioral problems (thinking). Intellectual behavior is closely related to other forms of behavioral components, such as perception, manipulation, learning and instincts. The complexity of a behavioral act is not a sufficient basis for recognizing the presence of intelligence in an animal. The complex nest-building behavior of some birds is determined by innate programs (instincts). The main difference between intellectual activity is plasticity, which can significantly increase the chances of survival in rapidly changing environmental conditions.

The development of intelligence can be evidenced by both behavior and the structure of the brain.

The key features of language as a communicative system are development in the process of socialization, the arbitrary nature of signs, the presence of grammar and openness. Animal communication systems correspond to individual features of language. An example is the well-known bee dance. The form of its elements (waggling, moving in a circle) are separated from the content (direction, distance, characteristics of the food source).

Although there is evidence that some talking birds are able to use their imitative abilities for the needs of interspecific communication, the actions of talking birds (mynas, macaws) do not meet this definition.

One approach to studying animal language is experimental teaching of an intermediary language. Similar experiments involving great apes have gained great popularity. Since, due to anatomical and physiological characteristics, monkeys are not able to reproduce the sounds of human speech, the first attempts to teach them human language failed.

Mathematical ability

According to modern ideas, the foundations of mathematical abilities in humans and animals have a common basis. Although animals are unable to deal with abstract mathematical concepts, they can confidently estimate and compare the number of different objects. Similar abilities have been noted in primates and some birds, in particular ravens. Moreover, primates are capable of performing arphimetic operations.

The validity of Morgan's canon, as well as the importance of scrupulous evaluation of methods, is well illustrated by the story of Clever Hans, a horse who demonstrated exceptional mathematical abilities. Clever Hans was able to perform mathematical calculations and tap out the answer with his hoof. For thirteen years, Hans publicly demonstrated his abilities (including in the absence of his owner, which excluded the possibility of training), until in 1904 Oskar Pfungst became mute. Oskar Pfungst did not establish that the horse responded to the examiners' subtle movements.

Portman scale

It all started with the work of Professor A. Portman from the Zoological Institute of Basel (Switzerland). Based on the latest scientific data, Portman created the so-called “mind scale,” which in turn ranked all living inhabitants of the planet in places according to their intelligence.

And this is what happened: in first place, undoubtedly, is a man (214 points), and in second place is a dolphin (195 points). The elephant unconditionally took third place (150 points), and our younger brothers, the monkeys, took only fourth place, earning only 63 points. They are followed by the zebra (42 points), giraffe (38 points), fox (28 points) and so on. The hippopotamus turned out to be the least intelligent in terms of intelligence, according to the Portman scale - it scored only 18 points.

Dolphins

Many argue that dolphins are worthy of attention, and their intelligence is ahead of humans. It has been proven that dolphins have abstract thinking, identify themselves with the image in the mirror, and have a well-developed and still not fully studied signal system.

A dolphin named Polorus Jack "worked" for twenty-five years... as a pilot in New Zealand. He guided ships through the most dangerous straits so professionally that ship captains trusted him much more than professional human pilots.

Another celebrity is Taffy the dolphin, who first worked for a long time as a postman, guide and tool carrier in an American underwater expedition. Then the smart dolphin was hired by rocket scientists. He successfully completed tasks related to searching in the ocean and delivering spent rocket stages to the shore.

A couple of years ago, scientists brought several dolphins that had just been caught in the ocean to a marine aquarium near Miami and placed them with already domesticated individuals, separating them with a partition just in case. According to the watchmen, noise was heard from the aquarium all the next night - it was the old-timers striking up a conversation with the new arrivals. Moreover, the dolphins communicated through the partition without seeing each other.

Imagine the surprise of the scientists when in the morning they discovered that the newcomers already knew perfectly well and perfectly performed all the tricks that their previously caught brothers had previously learned.

In third place, according to the Portman scale, are elephants. Here, first of all, I would like to note the wonderful memory of these mighty animals. For the rest of their lives they remember people who treated them badly or, conversely, well, but also even the area in which an event worth remembering took place.

Scientists have identified at least seventy different signals that elephants exchange. They, like whales, primarily communicate through low-frequency noises that are inaudible to the human ear. And so researchers, using special equipment, including special microphones, found that elephants have very thin ear for music. There is a known case where an elephant was trained to recognize and respond accordingly to twelve musical melodies. And despite the fact that a lot of time has passed since the last training, the elephant still continues to recognize the songs it once learned.

Elephants often take care of humans on their own initiative. Several children who were on the beach of Phuket Island (Thailand) during the flood managed to escape because they were taken to a safe place. dangerous place elephant. The animal was tame and very popular among tourists. He was brought ashore every day to entertain the children. When a huge wave covered the beach, all the children who could fit on the back of the animal climbed there, and the elephant very quickly left the dangerous place without any drivers, taking the children to a safe zone.

Elephants also have an amazing similarity with humans - they never forget their dead. Having discovered the bones of their fellow tribesman, gnawed by hyenas, the elephants become extremely excited: they pick up the remains with their trunks and carry them for some time from place to place. Sometimes they lightly step on the bones and begin to gently roll them along the ground, as if saying goodbye to a deceased friend.

Monkeys

But monkeys are similar to us not only in social aspects. For a long time, perhaps the smartest monkey in the world, a chimpanzee named Moya, lived at the University of Washington. From the moment Moya was born, scientists began to treat her like a mute human baby, and soon achieved interesting results. A few years later, Moya easily communicated with her mentors using sign language for the deaf and dumb, having at the same time a hundred and eighty words and concepts in stock. The chimpanzee knew how to count, loved to dress in human clothes, always choosing bright colors, and had a kind, easy-going character. Moya lived twenty-nine years, which is a long time for a monkey, and died of old age. But the experiment didn't end there. The university now cares for four more chimpanzees, whose store of human knowledge is already much higher than that of the famous Moya.

It's funny that the capabilities of monkeys are not at all limited to the ability to communicate in sign language and mastery of simple arithmetic. Not long ago, scientists discovered that baboons have... a penchant for programming! Under sensitive human guidance, a group of experimental baboons short term mastered the programming language "BASIC 3.0".

The monkeys learned to independently change program settings and file parameters. Moreover, it was enough to show the baboon the path to the picture he was interested in once, and in the future he could get to it on his own, while remembering up to seven levels in the menu.

Interestingly, as soon as the monkey became able to independently press keys or use a computer menu, its status among its relatives increased sharply.

Beavers work in shifts

In one Wyoming gorge, American scientists discovered a dam six meters high and 10 m wide. But this is not the limit - the largest of all known beaver dams was found in the American state of New Hampshire near the town of Berlin. At least 40 beaver families took part in its construction, and the length of the dam reached 1200 m! How beavers “agree” among themselves about who should do what remains unclear. Building and repairing dams requires the efforts of many animals. Beavers work in shifts, and each “shift” consists of a small group of individuals. And some beavers generally like to work alone, but at the same time clearly adhere to the overall plan.

How pigs learn

The pig, which was smaller and weaker than the rest, was given a place where food could be found, and then a competitor pig was involved in the experiment. The knowledgeable pig would usually head straight for the food bucket, while the unaware pig would walk around inspecting the empty buckets. The competitor pig then learned to follow the aware pig to the food bucket. She apparently understood that the knowledgeable pig knew something that she could also use. When she approached the bucket, thanks to her larger size, she simply pushed the aware pig away from it and ate the food. The knowledgeable pig then began to behave in such a way as to minimize the chances of the competing pig. She did not go straight to the food bucket, but tried to approach it when the competing pig was out of sight.

There are two explanations for this behavior. Either the knowledgeable pig could have anticipated the presence of a competitor, indicating the beginnings of thinking, or its behavior was the result of experience gained through trial and error.

Properties of living organisms

All living organisms are, to a greater or lesser extent, characterized by certain size and shape, metabolism, mobility, irritability, growth, reproduction and adaptability. Although this list seems quite clear and definite, the boundary between living and nonliving is rather arbitrary, and whether we call, for example, viruses living or nonliving depends on the definition of life that we accept. Non-living objects may have one or more of the listed properties, but never exhibit all of these properties at the same time. Crystals in saturated solution can “grow”, a piece of metallic sodium begins to quickly “run” along the surface of the water, and a drop of oil floating in a mixture of glycerin and alcohol releases pseudopodia and moves like an amoeba.

The vast majority of life can ultimately be explained in terms of the same physical and chemical laws that govern nonliving systems. It follows from this that if we knew well enough the chemical and physiological basis of life phenomena, we might be able to synthesize living matter. In essence, the enzymatic synthesis of specific DNA molecules, carried out in vitro by Arthur Conberg in 1958, can already be considered as an important first step in this direction*. The opposite view, called vitalism, was widespread among biologists until the beginning of this century; they believed that life was determined and controlled by forces of a special kind, inexplicable in terms of physics and chemistry. Many phenomena of life, which seemed so mysterious when first discovered, were understood without the involvement of a special “life force,” and it is reasonable to assume that other manifestations of life, with their further study, will turn out to be explainable on a scientific basis.

* At the end of 1967, A. Kornberg and his collaborators obtained new important results. They managed to synthesize specific DNA of the Æ X174 virus, which has biological activity. When cells are infected, this artificial DNA behaves exactly like the natural DNA of the virus.

[V.S.1] Specific organization. Each genus of living organisms has a characteristic form and appearance; adult individuals of each genus of organisms, as a rule, have a characteristic size. Nonliving objects tend to have much less constant size and shape. Living organisms are not homogeneous, but consist of different parts that perform special functions; thus, they are characterized by a specific complex organization. Structural and functional unit In both plant and animal organisms, the cell is the simplest particle of living matter that can exist independently. But the cell itself has a specific organization; Each type of cell has a characteristic size and shape, it has a plasma membrane that separates living matter from its environment, and it contains a nucleus, a specialized part of the cell that is separate from the rest of its matter. nuclear envelope. The nucleus, as we will learn later, plays an important role in the control and regulation of cell functions. The bodies of higher animals and plants have a number of successively more complex levels of organization: cells are organized into tissues, tissues into organs, and organs into organ systems. .

Metabolism. The set of all chemical processes carried out by protoplasm and ensuring its growth, maintenance and restoration is called metabolism or metabolism. The protoplasm of each cell is constantly changing: it absorbs new substances, subjects them to various chemical changes, builds new protoplasm and converts the potential energy contained in large molecules of proteins, fats and carbohydrates into kinetic energy and heat, as these substances are converted into others, simpler connections. This constant expenditure of energy is one of the specific and characteristic features of living organisms. Some types of protoplasm are characterized by high metabolic rates; it is very high, for example, in bacteria. Other types, such as the protoplasm of seeds and spores, have as much low level exchange that it is difficult to detect. Even within the same species of organisms or within one individual, the metabolic rate can vary depending on factors such as age, sex, general health, endocrine gland activity, or pregnancy.

Metabolic processes can be anabolic or catabolic. The term anabolism refers to those chemical processes, in which simpler substances combine with each other to form more complex substances, which leads to the accumulation of energy, the construction of new protoplasm and growth. Catabolism is the name given to the breakdown of these complex substances, leading to the release of energy and to the wear and consumption of protoplasm. Processes of both types occur continuously; Moreover, they are complexly interdependent and difficult to separate from each other. Complex compounds are broken down and their constituent parts are combined with each other in new combinations to form other substances. An example of a combination of catabolism and anabolism is the mutual transformations of carbohydrates, proteins and fats that continuously occur in the cells of our body. Since most anabolic processes require energy, some catabolic processes must occur to supply energy for the reactions involved in building new molecules.

Both plants and animals have anabolic and catabolic phases of metabolism. However, plants (with some exceptions) have the ability to synthesize their own organic substances from inorganic substances soil and air; Animals depend on plants for their nutrition.

Irritability. Living organisms have irritability: they react to stimuli, i.e. to physical or chemical changes in their immediate environment. Irritants, causing a reaction in most animals and plants, these are changes in color, intensity or direction of light rays, temperature, pressure, sound and changes in chemical composition soil, water or atmosphere surrounding an organism. In humans and other complex animals, certain highly specialized cells of the body are particularly sensitive to certain types of stimuli: rods and cones in the retina of the eye react to light, certain cells in the nose and taste buds of the tongue respond to chemical irritations, and special skin cells respond to changes in temperature or pressure. In lower animals and plants, such specialized cells may be absent, but the entire organism reacts to irritation. Single-celled animals and plants respond by moving toward or away from a stimulus when exposed to heat or cold, certain chemicals, light, or when touched by a microneedle.

The irritability of plant cells is not always as noticeable as the irritability of animal cells, but also plant cells sensitive to changes in their environment. The flow of protoplasm in plant cells is sometimes accelerated or stopped by changes in lighting. Some plants (such as the Venus flytrap, which grows in the swamps of the Carolinas) are amazingly sensitive to touch and can catch insects. Their leaves are capable of bending along the midrib, and the edges of the leaves are equipped with hairs. In response to irritation produced by the insect, the leaf folds, its edges move closer together, and the hairs, intertwining, do not allow the prey to slip out. The leaf then secretes a liquid that kills and digests the insect. The ability to catch insects evolved as an adaptation that allows such plants to obtain part of the nitrogen necessary for their growth from the “eaten” prey, since the soil in which they grow is very poor in nitrogen.

Height. The next feature of living organisms - growth - is the result of anabolism. An increase in the mass of protoplasm can occur due to an increase in the size of individual cells, due to an increase in the number of cells, or due to both. An increase in cell size may result from simple uptake of water, but this type of swelling is not usually considered growth. The concept of growth refers only to those processes in which the amount of living matter in an organism increases, measured by the amount of nitrogen or protein. The growth of different parts of the body can either be uniform, or some parts grow faster, so that the proportions of the body change as they grow. Some organisms (such as most trees) can grow indefinitely. Most animals have a limited growth period, ending when the adult animal reaches a certain size. One of the remarkable features of the growth process is that every growing organ continues to function at the same time.

Reproduction. If there is any property that can be considered an absolutely essential attribute of life, it is the ability to reproduce. The simplest viruses lack metabolism, do not move or grow, and yet, because they are able to reproduce themselves (and also mutate), most biologists consider them to be living organisms. One of the basic principles of biology is that “all living things come only from living things.”

Classic experiments refuting the theory of the spontaneous origin of life were carried out by the Italian Francesco Redi around 1680. Redi proved in a very simple way that “worms” (fly larvae) do not form from rotting meat. He put a piece of meat in three jars, one of which he left open, the second he tied with thin gauze, and the third with parchment. All three pieces of meat began to rot, but the “worms” appeared only in the meat that was in the open jar. Several worms appeared on the gauze covering the second jar, but they were not in the meat, nor were they in the meat covered with parchment. Thus, Redi proved that the “worms” did not arise from rotting meat, but hatched from eggs laid by flies attracted by the smell of decaying meat. Further observations showed that the larvae develop into adult flies, which again lay eggs. About two centuries later, Louis Pasteur established that bacteria do not arise by spontaneous generation, but only from pre-existing bacteria. Submicroscopic filterable viruses are not formed from non-viral material, but come only from pre-existing viruses.

The body receives almost everything necessary for its vital functions from the external environment.
The need for something to maintain the life and development of the organism causes a special state called need. A complex complex of adaptive motor acts aimed at satisfying the body’s needs and manifested in purposeful activity is called behavior. Behavior is a combination of physiological and mental processes.
Translating all this into a more understandable language, we can say that the need for food in a wolf causes a great variety of different movements aimed at searching for prey and hunting it, as well as absorbing food and satisfying the existing need. All this can be called hunting behavior.
In the broadest terms, behavior can be divided into two types: innate and acquired, but there is no clear boundary between them, and most behavioral reactions of higher organisms undoubtedly contain elements of both types.
Innate behavior These are forms of behavior that are genetically programmed and which are almost impossible to change.
	Acquired (as a result of learning) name all forms of behavior that are formed as a result of the individual experience of a living organism.
In principle, it is beneficial for an animal to have both innate and acquired forms of behavior.
The advantage of an innate behavioral act, for example, withdrawing a hand from a fire, is that it is implemented very quickly and always without error. This greatly reduces the likelihood of mistakes the animal might make if it had to learn to avoid fire or hide when a predator is nearby. In addition, innate behavior eliminates the need to expend time and energy on learning. The lower parts of the nervous system are involved in the implementation of innate forms of behavior.
Acquired forms of behavior can change over time as the animal's living conditions change.
Innate forms of behavior have developed and improved over many generations through natural selection, and their main adaptive value is that they contribute to the survival of the species. Innate forms of behavior include unconditioned reflexes and instincts. Let us characterize them sequentially.
Unconditioned reflexes, their characteristics and classification
Unconditioned reflexes (specific reflexes) are relatively constant, stereotypical, innate, genetically fixed reactions of the body to internal and external stimuli (stimuli), carried out with the participation of the central nervous system (CNS).
The term “unconditioned reflex” was introduced by I.P. Pavlov to designate reflexes, of course, that is, those that automatically arise when the corresponding stimuli act on the receptors. For example, salivation when food enters the mouth, withdrawal of the hand when a finger is pricked, etc. The set of unconditioned reflexes is the same in individuals of the same species, which is why they are called species-specific. Their presence is the same obligatory species characteristic as the shape of the body, the number of fingers or the pattern on the wings of a butterfly.
To carry out innate reflexes, the body has ready-made reflex arcs. The centers of unconditioned reflexes are located in spinal cord and in the brain stem, i.e. V lower parts CNS. For their implementation, the participation of the cerebral cortex is not necessary. An important role in the mechanism of unconditioned reflexes belongs to feedback - information about the results and degree of success of the action performed. Thanks to unconditioned reflexes, the integrity of the body is preserved, the constancy of the internal environment is maintained, and reproduction occurs. Unconditioned reflexes underlie all behavioral reactions of animals and humans.
There are several different types unconditioned reflexes, depending on different approaches to their classification.

The implementation of innate unconditioned reflexes is due to the presence of corresponding needs that arise as a result of a temporary disruption of the internal constancy (homeostasis) of the body or as a result of complex interactions with the outside world. Again, translating the above into a more understandable language, we can say that a change in the internal constancy of the body - an increase, for example, in the amount of hormones in the blood - leads to the manifestation of sexual reflexes, and an unexpected rustle - the influence of the external world - to alertness and the manifestation of an indicative reflex.

Therefore, we can believe that the emergence of an internal need is actually a condition for the implementation of an unconditional reflex and, in a certain sense, its beginning.

Instincts and their characteristics

Instinct (from the Latin instinctus - urge) is a more complex than an unconditioned reflex, an innate form of behavior that occurs in response to certain environmental changes and is of great importance for the survival of the organism.

Instinctive behavior is specific to each species. This is a whole chain of reflex acts sequentially connected with each other.

Let's consider instinctive behavior using the example of nesting behavior of birds.

Thus, we see that each subsequent reflex act is stimulated by the previous one, and instinctive behavior is a series of innate reactions of the body to the influence of the external world.

In this complex behavior, acquired forms of behavior- young birds can build their first nest and it will not be as successful as all subsequent ones.

The instinctive behavior of birds that appears to be very intelligent can be believed in some experiments. It is enough to create a situation that requires non-standard solutions, and you can watch how outwardly very reasonable behavior collapses and becomes absurd. For example, a hen that has been given kittens instead of chickens tries to behave with them like chickens for some time.

Instinctive behavior is genetically programmed and practically cannot be changed. It provides the body with a set of ready-made behavioral reactions that allow animals to exhibit rather complex adaptive behavior without training.

Individual recognition of conspecifics in adult flocking birds is very important in connection with the creation of a dominance hierarchy. In chickens, the most likely basis for individual recognition is the comb in combination with the beak or earrings.
In colonial-breeding shorebirds, individual recognition is very important both for members of a married couple and for parents and their offspring. Without such recognition, parental care could extend to other people's chicks. It is striking that in many cases this recognition is based on individual characteristics of vocal signals.
Species-specific defensive reactions. Balls, in his very important article, criticized the provisions of traditional learning theory as applied to avoidance. He noted that in laboratory conditions, animals solve some avoidance tasks faster than others, and suggested that these differences could be understood by taking into account species-specific defensive reactions. According to Balls, animals in nature do not learn to avoid danger gradually, as might be inferred from laboratory data: then they would die before the learning was completed. Rather, new or unexpected stimuli trigger the expression of innate defensive reactions.
“Learning” will be rapid if the avoidance reaction that needs to be developed in the animal is one of the defensive reactions characteristic of a given situation, and is close to it. But when an animal is taught a response that is incompatible with its species-specific defensive behavior, it will be learned very slowly. For example, it is much more difficult to get a rat to turn a wheel or press a lever to avoid an electric shock than to teach it to run away from a dangerous area. Balls's speculations have stimulated intensive research into the relationship between species-specific defensive responses and avoidance conditioning, and the results obtained are generally consistent with his hypothesis.

A huge number of beautiful animals live on our planet. Scientists and specialists have been trying for a long time to determine who is the smartest among them?.

Today is the first part of our big review according to Animal Planet.

10th place: Rats

Yes, yes, we were not mistaken. Usually, when you hear the word “rat,” the image of a gray, unpleasant creature with long tail. In criminal jargon, a “rat” is a person who steals from his own people. But read the next few paragraphs and perhaps you will change your mind about these very smart animals.

They are always where we are. They feed on what we left behind. We may not even notice them, but they are here and building their dark kingdoms right under our feet. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. And they are not going anywhere. This is a well-oiled machine for conquering the world.

It has long been known that rats are among the most intelligent animals. As an example, let’s give a story from the head of one of the branches of the famous Moscow Eliseevsky store, Larisa Darkova.

It all started with the fact that rats managed to steal eggs without breaking them. For a long time, surveillance was carried out in the basements of Eliseevsky, unnoticed by these gray rodents. And this is what turned out. “In order not to damage the fragile shell,” says Larisa Darkova, “these clever people came up with the following: one rat lies on its back and rolls its muzzle into the hollow formed on its stomach chicken egg. At this time, another “accomplice” grabs her by the tail, and thus they drag the egg into the hole.”

Humanity has been waging war against rats for centuries, but we cannot win. Some biologists are confident that gray rats have a collective mind that controls the actions of each individual individual. This hypothesis explains a lot: the speed with which gray rodents dealt with other species, and the success in their fight against people.

It is the collective mind that helps rats avoid inevitable death. The well-known phrase “rats fleeing a sinking ship” has behind it numerous, officially recorded cases of rats abandoning doomed ships in advance. Another example is earthquakes, which, according to scientists, cannot be accurately predicted. And the rats simply leave the city a day or two before tremors that could destroy buildings. Perhaps the rat hivemind is able to see the future better than us humans.

Rats have a clear hierarchy. In addition to the leader and subordinates, there are also so-called “scouts” in rat society. Thanks to this, all the efforts of mankind in inventing ingenious mousetraps and rat poisons are coming to naught. The suicide bombers “appointed” by the leader go on reconnaissance and try poisoned baits. Having received the SOS signal, the remaining members of the rat pack stop paying attention to poisonous products. And the “kamikazes” sit in their holes and drink water, trying to wash out their stomachs. The same is true with traps. If rats notice their relative in a trap, the flock will immediately leave the dangerous place.

The whole point is that, unlike a person, a rat never steps on the same rake twice, and therefore it is practically indestructible.

We may hate these gray rodents, but when you recognize their abilities, a feeling of respect automatically arises. The rat is a true superorganism, capable of living and thriving in almost any environment, the vitality of which has been developed over 50 million years.

They perfectly climb almost any surface, pipes and trees, can climb steep brick walls, crawl into a hole the size of a five-ruble coin, run at speeds of up to 10 km/h, swim and dive well (there is a known case when a rat swam 29 kilometers) .

When biting, a rat's teeth develop a pressure of 500 kg/sq.cm. This is enough to chew through the bars of the grill. A wild rat in an aggressive state can jump to a height of up to 2 meters. Rats can survive in absolutely extreme conditions, in which other animals would probably die. So, these, in general, heat-loving animals can live in refrigerators at a temperature of minus 17 degrees and even reproduce.

Rats, these practically invisible, nimble and intelligent creatures, are not afraid of a clumsy two-legged man, who, over many millennia of war, has not come up with anything smarter than a simple mousetrap.

9th place: Octopus

No. 9 on our list of the smartest animals is octopus is one of the smartest sea creatures. They know how to play, distinguish various shapes and patterns (such as colored light bulbs), solve puzzles, navigate mazes, and have short-term and long-term memory. As a sign of respect for the intelligence of octopuses, some countries in the world have even passed laws requiring the use of anesthesia before performing operations on them.

Octopuses are invertebrates, and the closest species to them are squid and cuttlefish. In total, there are more than 200 species of different octopuses in the world that inhabit the seas and oceans of the Earth.

Octopuses are skilled hunters, acting from ambush. Open battle is not for them. This attack tactic also serves as a defense for the octopus itself. If necessary, the octopus throws out a cloud of ink, which disorients the predator attacking it. Octopus ink not only allows the owner to hide from sight, but also temporarily deprives the predator of its sense of smell. Maximum speed The octopus's movement is just over 30 km/h, but they can maintain this pace for a very short period of time.

Octopuses are very curious, which is usually associated with intelligence. In nature, they sometimes build their shelter houses from stones - this also indicates a certain intellectual level.

However, octopuses cannot realize that glass is transparent. This is proven by the following simple experiment: we give the octopus a treat in the form of his favorite crab, but in a “package” - a glass cylinder without a top lid. He can continue for a very long time in fruitless attempts to get food, knocking his body against the walls of a transparent vessel, although all he had to do was climb the glass 30 centimeters, and he would freely penetrate through the open top of the cylinder to the crab. But it is enough for his tentacle to accidentally jump over the top edge of the glass vessel once, and he develops a conditioned reflex. Just one successful attempt is enough, and now the octopus knows exactly how to get the crab from behind the glass.

Octopus tentacles perform irreplaceable functions:

they crawl on tentacles along the bottom;
carry heavy loads;
build nests with tentacles;
open shellfish shells;
attach their eggs to stones;
They also perform guard duty.

The upper pair of hands is intended for feeling and examining surrounding objects. Octopuses use longer tentacles as attack weapons. When attacking prey or defending against an enemy, they try to grab the enemy with them. In “peaceful” times, “combat” arms turn into legs and serve as stilts when moving along the bottom.

The development of organs in animals that they can use as simple tools leads to the formation of a more complex brain.

Various experiments show that octopuses have excellent memory. And the “intelligence” of an animal is primarily determined by the ability of its brain to remember experiences. When everything is in order with memory, the next step is intelligence, which helps to draw conclusions from the experience gained.

Over the past 10 years, the most advanced experiments on the behavior of octopuses have been carried out by sea station in Naples. Scientists have found that Octopuses are trainable. They They can distinguish geometric shapes just as well as elephants and dogs.- a small square from a larger one, a rectangle shown vertically and horizontally, a white circle from a black one, a cross and a square, a rhombus and a triangle. For making the right choice, the octopuses were given goodies; for a mistake, they received a weak electric shock.

Octopuses are easily hypnotized, which indicates a fairly high organization of his brain. One of the methods of hypnosis is to hold an octopus in the palm of your hand for some time with its mouth up, the tentacles should hang down. When an octopus is hypnotized, you can do whatever you want with it - it doesn't wake up. You can even throw it, and it will fall lifeless, like a piece of rope.

These smart marine animals are still poorly understood, but scientists are constantly discovering new and impressive abilities of octopuses.

8th place: Dove

Pigeons in large quantities can be found in all major cities, and most of us consider these birds to be “bad” creatures that get under our feet. But numerous scientific experiments show that these are very smart birds. For example, pigeons can remember and recognize hundreds of different images over many years.

The most common and well-known pigeon is the rock pigeon (lat. columba livia) - a bird whose homeland is considered to be Europe. A group of scientists from the Japanese Keio University showed through experiments that rock pigeons are able to recognize themselves in the mirror better than small children. Before these studies, it was believed that only humans, primates, dolphins and elephants had such abilities.

The experiments were carried out as follows. The pigeons were shown 3 videos simultaneously. The first video showed them in real time (i.e. a mirror), the second showed their movements a few seconds ago, and the third was recorded several hours before the present moment. The birds made a choice with their beaks, pointing in a certain direction. According to the results of these tests, it turned out that pigeons remember their actions with a delay of up to 5-7 seconds.

Pigeons can be trained to perform a sequence of movements and distinguish between two objects with small differences - quite impressive for a simple pest.

In Tsarist Russia, pigeons were valued no less than large farm animals. Noble families bred their own breeds of pigeons, and these birds were a source of special pride and were passed on through generations.

The useful skills of pigeons have always been valued. For example, these birds' ability to find their way home and fly quickly made it possible to use them to transmit mail.

7th place: Belka

This nimble animal has a brain the size of a large pea. However, research shows that squirrels have excellent spatial orientation, have extraordinary intelligence and phenomenal memory, and can think and analyze.

Thanks to their intelligence and ability to survive, squirrels can be found everywhere. They have penetrated almost every corner of the globe. Squirrels are everywhere. From alpine marmots on snowy mountain peaks to squirrels living in the hot Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Subterranean squirrels - prairie dogs and chipmunks - have entered the underground space. Squirrels have penetrated all cities. AND The most famous of the squirrels is the gray one.

One of the widely known distinctive features protein is their ability to store nuts for the winter. Squirrels do not hibernate and must find up to 3,000 hidden nuts to survive. They bury some types of nuts in the ground, others hide them in tree hollows. This work requires incredible effort.

Thanks to their phenomenal memory, squirrels can remember the location of a nut 2 months after they buried it. Fantastic! Try hiding 3,000 coins. We guarantee that in a month you will be able to find only the one that is in your wallet.

Squirrels also have their own thieves, who decide not to get nuts, but wait and watch from ambush until other squirrels begin burying their winter food. But for every action there is a counteraction. If the squirrel notices that they are starting to follow it, it pretends to bury the food. While the thief is wasting time on the empty hole, the squirrel moves his nut to another, more secret place. Isn't this the best proof that squirrels have intelligence?

Planning and remembering the correct route to food is vital. Brain and memory test: At the top of the wall there are 2 round holes, both with doors that open in one direction. One leads to a dead end that will force the squirrel to start over, and the twisted tube - a more difficult path - leads to nuts. Question: Will the squirrel choose the right hole?

Research shows that squirrels have excellent spatial orientation, and even from the ground they can see which hole leads to the nuts. Squirrels without hesitation fit into the desired hole leading to food.

The ability to pave the way, dexterity, phenomenal ingenuity, spatial orientation and lightning speed - this is the secret of the success of squirrels on our planet.

Very often, squirrels are considered pests. After all, they chew everything they can and cannot.

6th place: Pigs

Despite their reputation for being gluttonous and always dirty creatures (they'll find dirt everywhere), pigs are actually very intelligent animals. Whether domestic or wild, pigs are known for their ability to adapt to different environmental conditions.

American zoologist E. Menzel believes that in terms of the development of their own language, pigs occupy second place among animals after monkeys. Pigs respond well to music, for example, they can grunt to the beat of the melody.

Thanks to high intelligence pigs are highly stressed. Piglets are very attached to their mothers, and if they are separated, especially at an early age, they experience this very painfully: the piglet does not eat well and loses a lot of weight.

The greatest stress for pigs is moving from one place to another. It is not for nothing that Academician Pavlov stated that the pig is the most nervous of the animals surrounding humans.

Some scientists claim that a pig's intelligence is approximately matches the intelligence of a three year old child. In terms of learning ability, pigs are at least at the level of cats and dogs, and often surpass them. Even Charles Darwin believed that pigs were at least as intelligent as dogs.

Conducted various intelligence tests among the pigs. In one test, the feeder was connected to a computer. A cursor was displayed on the monitor screen, which could be moved using a joystick. Also, a special area was shown on the monitor: if you hit it with the cursor, the feeder automatically opens and food pours out. Amazingly, the pigs were excellent at controlling the joystick and moved the cursor to the right place! Dogs cannot repeat this experiment and are inferior to pigs in intelligence.

Pigs have a fantastic sense of smell! They are, for example, used as truffle finders - underground mushrooms - in France. Pigs were used to find mines during the war; trained sniffer pigs easily cope with the search for various drugs.

In terms of blood composition, digestive physiology and some other physiological characteristics, pigs are very close to humans. Only monkeys are closer. That is why donor material taken from pigs is often used in transplantology. Many pig organs are used directly or indirectly in the treatment of dangerous human diseases, and their gastric juice used in the manufacture of insulin. A pig often suffers from the same diseases as a person, and it can be treated with almost the same drugs in the same doses.

5th place: Crows

Crows are incredibly intelligent animals. Scientists believe that their analytical thinking abilities are on par with those of great apes.

Crows are extremely adaptive and are exceptionally adapted to living around humans. Our actions force them to adapt in new ways every time. Crows don't survive with us, they thrive. They are found everywhere on the planet except Antarctica and parts South America. And throughout the entire territory you are unlikely to meet crows further than 5 km from a human dwelling.

We are finding more and more evidence that crows are very, very smart. Their brain size is the same proportion as that of a chimpanzee. There are many examples of various manifestations of their intelligence.

understands better than many people, which means red and green lights when crossing the street. Crows living in the city collect nuts from trees and place them on the roadway under the wheels of passing cars to open the shells. Then they wait patiently, waiting for the necessary light, return to the road and take their shelled nuts. An impressive example of innovation in the animal kingdom! The important thing is not that the crows learned to do this, but something else is important. This method was first observed in crows about 12 years ago in Tokyo. After this, all the crows in the area adopted this method. Crows learn from each other - that's a fact!

Another incredible study was carried out with a crow from New Caledonia. On this island, crows use twigs to pick insects from the bark of trees. In the experiment, a crow tried to get a piece of meat from a narrow glass tube. But the crow was given not the usual stick, but a piece of wire. She had never had to deal with this kind of material before. In front of the amazed researchers, the crow independently bent the wire into a hook using its paws and beak, and then took out the bait with this device. At this moment, the experimenters fell into ecstasy! But the use of tools is one of the highest forms of animal behavior, indicating their ability for intelligent activity.

Another example from Sweden. Researchers noticed that crows wait for fishermen to cast their fishing rods into the water, and when they move away, the crows fly in, reel in the fishing rod and eat the fish that was bait.

We can talk endlessly about the intelligence of crows. These observations were made at the University of Washington and indicate crows have amazing memory. Here the researchers had to catch a pair of crows flying around the area. The students went out, caught the birds with a net, measured them, weighed them, and then released them back. And they could not forgive such an attitude towards themselves! Subsequently, the crows flew up to those students as they walked across campus and shit on them, flew around in a flock, in short, ruined their lives in every possible way. This went on for a week. Then this continued for a month. And after the summer holidays...

Author Joshua Klein has been studying crows for more than 10 years. To confirm the presence of intelligence in these birds, he decided to conduct a rather complex experiment. In short, he created a special vending machine and put it in the field, and scattered coins around. The machine was filled with nuts, and to get them, you need to throw a coin into a special slot. Surprisingly, the crows figured out this task quite quickly, picked up the coins, dropped them into the slot and received nuts.

We know a lot about the species that are disappearing from the planet as a result of human habitat expansion, but no one pays attention to the species that are alive and thriving. In Moscow alone there are about 1 million crows. These smartest representatives of birds have perfectly adapted to the human environment.

4th place: Elephant

These are not just lumbering giants with big ears and good memories. The philosopher Aristotle once said that the elephant is “an animal that excels others in wit and intelligence.”

With a mass of more than 5 kg, the elephant's brain is larger than that of any other land animal, but small compared to the total body mass: only ~0.2% (in chimpanzees - 0.8%, in humans about 2%). Based on this, one might think that elephants are quite stupid animals. But the evidence suggests that relative brain size may not be an accurate measure of intelligence.

Elephants are animals that are good know how to show their emotions, both positive and negative. Their “facial expressions” consist of movements of the head, ears and trunk, with which the elephant can express all sorts of, often subtle, shades of good or bad mood.

Elephants are extremely caring and sensitive to other members of their group, as well as other species of animals, which is considered a very advanced form of intelligence. For example, elephants feel very deeply the loss of someone from the herd. They can gather near a dead body for several days. There have been recorded cases of “funerals” when elephants covered their dead comrades with a layer of vegetation.

Elephants incredibly good memory. Elephants remember a person who treated them well or badly all their lives. There are many examples when the owner offended the elephant, and only years later the elephant took revenge on him, and sometimes even killed him.

As we already know, use of tools animals directly points to capacity for intelligent activity. To determine this, the following studies were conducted at the Washington Zoo. In the elephant enclosure, fruits and young bamboo shoots were hung high on a tree. The animals, standing on the ground, could not reach them even with their trunks. Not far from this place, the researchers placed a cube-shaped stand and began to observe...

At first, the elephant simply moved the cube around the enclosure, and in fairness it should be noted that he did not immediately figure out what to do: the experiment had to be repeated 7 times. And suddenly inspiration descended on the elephant: He got up, went straight to the cube, pushed it to the place where the treat was hanging and, standing on it with his front legs, took it out with his trunk. After that, even when the cube was out of reach, the elephant used other objects - a car tire and a large ball.

Elephants are believed to have good ear for music and musical memory, and are also able to distinguish melodies from three notes. In general, these huge animals are amazing artists. They are also well known for their ability to draw on the ground while holding a stick with their trunk. In Thailand, they even made an attraction where several Thai elephants painted abstract drawings in front of spectators. True, it is unknown whether the elephants actually understood what they were doing.

3rd place: Orangutans

Apes are considered the most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans. Of course, people are biased in this matter, but the mental capabilities of great apes are difficult to deny. So, In 3rd place on the list of the smartest animals is the orangutan. or “forest man” (orang - “man”, hutan - “forest”).

They are highly cultured and strong social connections. Females stay with their children for many years, teaching them everything they need to survive in the forest. For example, orangutans cleverly use leaves as umbrellas from the rain, or remember places where different times years the trees bear fruit. By the age of 10 years, an orangutan can taste and identify more than 200 species of different edible plants.

Great apes, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, are able to recognize themselves in the mirror, while most animals react to their image in the mirror as if they were another individual.

If intelligence is defined as the ability to solve various problems, then orangutans in this sense have no equal in the animal world.

Researchers have often observed orangutans using tools to wildlife. So, one male figured out to use a “pole” left by a man as a spear. He climbed onto the branches hanging over the water and tried to pierce the fish swimming below with a stick.

True, he failed to catch fish in this way, but this impressive example using a spear to catch fish is just one illustration of the high intelligence of orangutans.

2nd place: Dolphins

Dolphins appeared on Earth several tens of millions of years earlier than humans, and they are smarter than almost any creature on the planet.

Like other most intelligent animals, female dolphins stay with their children throughout many years, passing on your knowledge and experience to them. Much of dolphin behavior is passed down through generations.

Dolphins can use tools, which, as we already know, is a sign of intelligence. Thus, researchers observed a female dolphin who taught her dolphins to look for food, having first put a sea sponge on her nose so as not to get hurt or burned by a stone fish, which has poisonous spines on its back.

Dolphins are very social animals. They are characterized by self-awareness and division into separate individuals, who, moreover, think about the future. Research shows that dolphin "society" has a complex social structure and consists of individuals who cooperate with each other to solve complex problems, obtain food, etc. In addition, dolphins pass on new behavioral traits and acquired skills to each other.

Dolphins have very well developed imitation behavior. They easily remember and repeat the actions of both their brothers and other individuals from the animal world.

Dolphins are one of the few animals that not only recognize themselves in the mirror, but can also use it to “examine” parts of their body. This ability was previously discovered only in humans, monkeys, elephants and pigs. The ratio between brain and body sizes in a dolphin is second only to that of a human and is much larger than that of a chimpanzee. Dolphins have convolutions similar to those of the human brain, which also indicates the presence of intelligence.

Dolphins love an exploratory approach to everything; they quickly assess the situation and adapt their behavior to it, being well aware of what is happening.

When preparing various attractions with dolphins, it was noticed that they are not only capable of following commands, but can also take a creative approach to the process, and in addition to the necessary movements, invent and add their own tricks with objects (balls, hoops, etc.).

Dolphins remember sounds much better than pictures. Thanks to this, they can distinguish each other well by whistling. The range of sounds in which a dolphin can communicate is very wide - from 3,000 Hz to 200,000 Hz. Each dolphin knows the individuals from its pod by voice and has its own personal “name”. With the help of whistles of different lengths, tonality and melody, dolphins communicate with each other. So, one dolphin, without seeing the other, can “tell” which pedal needs to be pressed in order to open the feeder and get fish.

Dolphins' ability to imitate is widely known. They can imitate the chirping of birds and the creaking of a rusty door. Dolphins can even repeat some words or laughter after a person.

A fact that not everyone knows: the Japanese still eat intelligent dolphins, killing them by the thousands.

1st place: Chimpanzee

These apes are leaders in tool use. Thus, during observations of chimpanzees in the savannah in southeastern Senegal, more than 20 cases of these animals using 26 different tools, from stone hammers to sticks for picking out termites, were recorded.

But the most amazing thing was to watch the production and use of half-meter copies. The chimpanzees not only broke off branches of the required length and thickness, but also cleared them of leaves and smaller branches, peeled off the bark, and sometimes even sharpened the tip of the tool with their teeth.

Anthropologists from the Universities of Iowa and Cambridge, during research in 2005-2006, first discovered how chimpanzees used spears to hunt other vertebrates, and all this is strikingly reminiscent of the early steps of Homo sapiens on his path to becoming a dexterous hunter.

Just like orangutans, dolphins, elephants, chimpanzees are able to recognize themselves in the mirror, and not see another individual in it.

Another impressive example of the presence of intelligence in chimpanzees. When scientists set the monkeys the task of getting a nut from the bottom of a firmly fixed plastic test tube, some of the monkeys (14 out of 43 individuals) guessed that if they put water in their mouths from a tap and spit it out into a narrow neck, the nut would rise to the surface. 7 chimpanzees completed this task to a victorious end and got to the nut. In addition to chimpanzees, researchers working at an ape sanctuary in Uganda and at the Leipzig Zoo conducted similar experiments on gorillas. However, none of the gorillas managed to lift the nut. to the surface by transferring water in the mouth from the tap to the test tube.

Moreover, in this matter chimpanzees turned out to be smarter than children. Scientists conducted the same experiment with several groups of children: 24 four-year-old children and the same number of six and eight years old. Only instead of a tap, the children were given watering cans so that they would not have to carry water with their mouths. The four-year-old children performed worse than the chimpanzees: only two out of 24 completed the task. The highest success rate, as expected, was found in 8-year-old children: 14 out of 24.

However, we will not overestimate the abilities of these monkeys, although the genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees is so great that it was even proposed to combine them into one genus Homo.

That's it for our review 10 Smartest Animals on Earth according to Animal Planet has come to an end.

There are two main ways to assess animal intelligence. One is to measure behavior and the other is to study the brain. In the past, both of these approaches were based on the idea that there is a linear progression in development from lower, non-intelligent animals, characterized by relatively simple brains, to higher, intelligent animals, whose brains have complex structure. Surveying the entire animal kingdom as a whole, we would seem to find confirmation of this impression (see Chapter 11), but when we become more closely acquainted with certain special cases, we find here a lot obvious deviations. And these are not exceptions to the general rule, but a consequence of the fact that evolution did not proceed linearly, but gave many branches, at each of which adaptation to its own set of external conditions occurs. Thus, animals can be quite complex in some respects and quite simple in others. However, animals of various species can reach to the same degree complexity, being on different branches of the evolutionary tree.

When comparing the brains of animals of different species, one can expect that there will be some difference between the relative size separate structure and the degree of complexity of behavior that is regulated by this structure, there is a certain connection. The more an animal uses a certain feature of its behavior in the process of adaptation to the environment, the greater will be the number of neurons and their interconnections in the corresponding areas of the brain. This is easy to see when comparing specialized brain structures, such as those associated with various sensory processes. It is much more difficult to understand the case when we have to consider areas of the brain more generally functional purpose, as they may be increased by different animal species being subjected to different selection pressures (Jerison, 1973).

Many traditional ideas regarding the evolution of the vertebrate brain have been challenged. For example, contrary to popular beliefs, it turned out that in the evolutionary series fish-reptiles-birds-mammals there is no progressive increase in relative brain sizes, and in the sequence lampreys-sharks-bony fish-amphibians-reptiles-birds-mammals there is no increase in relative sizes forebrain(Jerison, 1973). Indeed, the relative size of the forebrain is almost identical in some sharks and mammals (Northcutt, 1981). It has long been believed that the telencephalon of sharks and teleosts is primarily associated with the sense of smell, but it is now believed that the olfactory representation in this brain region is no greater in non-mammalian animals than in mammals (Hodos, 1982). The idea that lower vertebrates have an undifferentiated forebrain has also been questioned (Hodos, 1982).

Trying to comprehend our understanding of animal intelligence in the light of modern data from neuroanatomy, Hodos (1982) comes to the following conclusion: “If we encounter signs of intelligence in representatives of the animal kingdom and correlate them with the degree of development of neural structures, we must abandon linear, hierarchically organized models that dominate both types of research. We should accept more general definition intelligence than that which is “tied” to the needs and assessments of a person. We must accept the fact that evolutionary history is characterized by divergence and nonlinearity, and we cannot expect smooth transitions from one large taxon to another. Finally, we cannot allow our knowledge of the mammalian central nervous system to bias us in our search for neural correlates of intelligence in other classes of vertebrates. Unless we change our thinking in this way, we seem to have little hope of making any further progress in our attempts to understand the relationships between the human psyche and the animal psyche and their corresponding neural substrates.”

Now let's return to the question of how one can assess the intelligence of an animal by its behavior. Since Binet developed tests to determine a person's intellectual level in 1905, significant progress has been made in improving and improving them. This progress was due primarily to the fact that it became possible to evaluate various tests by comparing the results of these tests with the subsequent successes of the subjects in the learning process. Modern intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are much more accurately able to predict how far someone will advance. this person in the field of intellectual achievements. However, many difficulties remain, especially when trying to compare the general intelligence of people with different levels culture. Assessing the intelligence of animals is much more difficult because there is no way to test the validity of a test and because animals of different species vary greatly in their ability to perform a given activity.

Until recently, the assessment of animal intelligence was mainly based on the study of those abilities that are usually considered an indicator of human intelligence. A modern IQ test includes various sections designed to assess a person's memory, arithmetic and logical abilities, language abilities and concept formation. As we have already seen, pigeons seem to have an amazing ability to form concepts such as water, tree and man. Should we consider this a sign of great intelligence? In discussing the linguistic abilities of animals, we have come to the conclusion that man's abilities in this respect are far superior to those of any animal, even a well-trained one.

But what does this mean? Significant superiority of human intelligence or its high specialization in terms of language use?

To compare the intellectual abilities of animals belonging to different species, it is difficult to come up with a test that would not be biased in one sense or another. Many of the previous tests for determining an animal's problem-solving ability were unreliable (Warren, 1973). Sometimes the same test, carried out on animals of the same species, gave completely different results, depending on the type of equipment used.

Many attempts have been made to find out whether animals can cope with tasks that require learning some general decision rule. Animals can be taught to choose from a group of offered objects the one that matches the model. Primates quickly learn to solve this kind of problem, but pigeons need much more attempts to do this. Harry Harlow (1949) developed a test to measure an animal's ability to follow rules and make correct judgments. Instead of testing the monkeys on a single task of simple visual discrimination (Fig. 27.1, 4), Harlow gave them a series of tests in which they had to follow the same rule to solve the problem. For example, an animal might be presented with a series of discrimination tasks of this type, as shown in Fig. 27 L,B. Although different objects were used in each task, the decision rule was the same: the food reward in each case (within a given task) was always under the same object, regardless of its position. If, as a sequence of such similar problems is presented, the animal solves them better and better, then in this case they say that it has developed learning installation(learning set).

As can be seen from Fig. 27.1, when studying the ability of animals to learn what general rule the solution is the same for a whole set of problems and that to obtain the correct solution you need to be guided by a single principle, you can use different types of problems. Critics of this technique have noted that the ability of animals of various species to develop learning attitudes depends greatly on the way the tests are administered (Hodos, 1970). However, even with these critics in mind, it seems to be true that animals of different species do differ in their ability to form learning attitudes (Passingham, 1981). When different animal species were ranked according to the rate at which their responses improved when presented with similar tasks in succession, their rank could be guessed based on an index of brain development (Ridell, 1979; Passingham, 1982). Using this index, the number of nerve cells in the brain that are redundant in relation to those necessary for the regulation of somatic functions is assessed (Jerison, 1973). So, it appears that tests similar to those for human intelligence can be developed to assess the intelligence of animals, and these tests can distinguish between the mental abilities of animals of different species.

Rice. 27.1. A series of discrimination tasks that have been used to investigate set learning. A. Simple discrimination (the arrow shows the correct choice: the object under which there is food). B. Inverse problem (the animal's solution must be the opposite of what was correct in the previous problem). IN. Conditional task (you need to choose one object if both objects are gray, and another if both are white). G. Matching task (the animal must choose an object that matches the sample located on the left side of the tray). D. Dissimilarity task (you need to choose the object that is different from the other two). (After Passingham, 1981.)

The view that such tests represent a true measure of intelligence is supported by evidence that performance on these tests correlates with measures of brain size. Similar results were obtained when using tests of another type, presented in Fig. 27.1. For example, it has been shown that rhesus macaques and chimpanzees, unlike cats, improve their performance much more quickly in solving a series of object discrimination tasks if they have had prior experience in solving reversible tasks, that is, tasks in which the reinforced choice of item was periodically changed (Warren, 1974). These two types of problems are solved on the basis of general principles that macaques and chimpanzees are able to use, while cats lack this ability. Similar differences between cats and monkeys can be noted in the case of experiments with solving problems on dissimilarity, in which the animal must choose an unpaired one from a group of objects (Warren, 1965). Critics of these experiments argue that they are inevitably conducted in such a way that it is easy for animals of one species to perform them, but difficult for animals of another species (Macphail, 1982). But even if the differences described are taken seriously, they reflect only one aspect of intellectual performance, and it is not surprising that macaques and great apes perform well on tests designed to determine human IQ, since they are all primates.

Rice. 27.2. Formation of the visual discrimination learning set in mammals. The percentage of correct answers in the second trial when solving each problem as a function of the number of proposed problems. (After Passingham, 1981.)

10Animal and human intelligence

Human intelligence

The essential qualities of human intelligence are inquisitiveness and depth of mind, its flexibility and mobility, logic and evidence.

Curiosity- the desire to comprehensively understand this or that phenomenon in significant respects. This quality of mind underlies active cognitive activity.

Depth of mind lies in the ability to separate the important from the secondary, the necessary from the accidental.

Flexibility and agility of mind- a person’s ability to widely use existing experience, quickly explore objects in new connections and relationships, and overcome stereotyped thinking.

Logical thinking characterized by a strict sequence of reasoning, taking into account all the essential aspects of the object under study, all its possible relationships.

Evidence thinking is characterized by the ability to use at the right moment such facts and patterns that convince of the correctness of judgments and conclusions.

Breadth of thinking- the ability to cover the issue as a whole, without losing sight of the initial data of the corresponding task, to see multiple options in solving the problem.

IQ and creativity

Since the end of the 19th century, various quantitative methods for assessing intelligence and the degree of mental development have become widespread in experimental psychology using special tests and a certain system of their statistical processing in factor analysis.

The idea of quantitatively determining the level of intellectual development of children using a test system was first developed by the French psychologist A. Binet in 1903, and the term was introduced by the Austrian psychologist W. Stern in 1911.

However, lateral thinking is not always creative, it is often just original, so it is really difficult to define creative thinking, much less quantify it.

Animal intelligence

History of the development of ideas about animal intelligence

Intellectual abilities of animals

The development of intelligence can be evidenced by both behavior and the structure of the brain.

Mathematical ability

Portman scale

Dolphins

Scientists have identified at least seventy different signals that elephants exchange. They, like whales, primarily communicate through low-frequency noises that are inaudible to the human ear. And so researchers, using special equipment, including special microphones, found that elephants have a very fine ear for music. There is a known case where an elephant was trained to recognize and respond accordingly to twelve musical melodies. And despite the fact that a lot of time has passed since the last training, the elephant still continues to recognize the songs it once learned.

Elephants often take care of humans on their own initiative. Several children who were on the beach of Phuket Island (Thailand) during the flood managed to escape because they were led to safety by an elephant. The animal was tame and very popular among tourists. He was brought ashore every day to entertain the children. When a huge wave covered the beach, all the children who could fit on the back of the animal climbed there, and the elephant very quickly left the dangerous place without any drivers, taking the children to a safe zone.

Monkeys

It's funny that the capabilities of monkeys are not at all limited to the ability to communicate in sign language and mastery of simple arithmetic. Not long ago, scientists discovered that baboons have... a penchant for programming! Under sensitive human guidance, a group of experimental baboons mastered the BASIC 3.0 programming language in a short time.

Interestingly, as soon as the monkey became able to independently press keys or use a computer menu, its status among its relatives increased sharply.

Beavers work in shifts

How pigs learn

10..1.intelligence of animals. It is generally accepted that intellectual behavior is the pinnacle of mental development in animals. Numerous experiments have proven that intellectual activity is characteristic only of higher vertebrates, but, in turn, is not limited to primates alone. It should be remembered that the intellectual behavior of animals is not something isolated, out of the ordinary, it is only one of the manifestations of a single mental activity with its innate and acquired aspects. According to K. Fabry, “...intellectual behavior is not only closely connected with various forms of instinctive behavior and learning, but is itself composed (on an innate basis) of individually variable components of behavior. It is the highest result and manifestation of individual accumulation of experience, a special category of learning with its inherent qualitative features. Therefore, intelligent behavior gives the greatest adaptive effect... during sudden, rapid changes in the environment.”

The main prerequisite for the development of intelligence is manipulation. This primarily applies to monkeys, for whom this process serves as a source of the most complete information about the properties and structure of the objective components of the environment. During manipulation, especially when performing complex manipulations, the animal’s experience of activity is generalized, generalized knowledge about the objective components of the environment is formed, and it is this generalized motor-sensory experience that forms the main basis of the monkeys’ intelligence. During manipulation, the animal receives information simultaneously through a number of sensory channels, but the combination of skin-muscular sensitivity of the hands with visual sensations is of predominant importance in monkeys. In addition, the examination of the object of manipulation involves the sense of smell, taste, tactile sensitivity of the perioral vibrissae, and sometimes hearing. Animals receive complex information about an object as a single whole with different qualities. This is precisely the meaning of manipulation as the basis of intellectual behavior.

Of primary importance for intellectual behavior are visual generalizations, also well represented in higher vertebrates. According to experimental data, in addition to primates, visual generalization is well developed in rats, some predatory mammals, and among birds - in corvids. In these animals, visual generalization is often close to the abstraction characteristic of mental processes.

Another element of intellectual behavior, directed to the motor sphere, is studied in detail in vertebrates using the problem box method. Animals are forced to solve complex subject problems, find the sequence of unlocking various locks and latches in order to get out of the cage or get to a treat. It has been proven that higher vertebrates solve objective problems much worse than problems based on the use of locomotor functions. This can be explained by the fact that the mental activity of animals is dominated by the cognition of spatial relationships, which they comprehend with the help of locomotor actions. Only in monkeys and some other mammals, due to the development of manipulative activity, locomotor actions cease to dominate; animals abstract more easily and, accordingly, solve objective problems better.

An important prerequisite for intellectual behavior, according to K. Fabry, is the ability to widely transfer skills to new situations. This ability is fully developed in higher vertebrates, although it manifests itself in different animals to varying degrees. The main laboratory experiments in this direction were carried out on monkeys, dogs and rats. According to K. Fabry, “the abilities of higher vertebrates for various manipulations, broad sensory (visual) generalization, for solving complex problems and transferring complex skills to new situations, for full orientation and adequate response in a new environment based on previous experience are the most important elements of intelligence animals. And yet, in themselves, these qualities are still insufficient to serve as criteria for the intelligence and thinking of animals.”

What are the main criteria for the intelligent behavior of animals? One of the main features of intelligence is that during this activity, in addition to the usual reflection of objects, a reflection of their relationships and connections also occurs. This was presented in rudimentary forms even during the formation of complex skills. Any intellectual action consists of at least two phases: the preparation phase of the action and the implementation phase of the action. It is the presence preparation phases is characteristic feature intellectual action. According to A.N. Leontiev, intelligence first arises where the process of preparing the opportunity to carry out a particular operation or skill arises.

During the experiment, one can clearly distinguish the main phases of intellectual action. For example, a monkey takes a stick and the next moment uses it to push a banana towards itself, or it first builds a pyramid of empty boxes in order to pick a bait suspended from the ceiling from a rope. N.N. Ladygina-Kots studied in detail in chimpanzees the process of preparing and even making tools necessary for solving a technically simple task - pushing bait out of a narrow tube. As the chimpanzees watched, bait was placed into the tube in such a way that it could not be reached simply with your fingers. Simultaneously with the tube, the animal was given various objects suitable for pushing out food. After some improvement was made to the object used to obtain food, the experimental monkey completely (though not always immediately) coped with all the tasks assigned.

In all these experiments, two phases of intellectual action are clearly visible: the first, preparatory phase - preparing the tool, the second phase - getting the bait with the help of this tool. The first phase is out of touch with next phase devoid of any biological meaning. Second phase – activity implementation phase – in general, it is aimed at satisfying a certain biological need of the animal (in the described experiments - food).

One more important criterion intellectual behavior is the fact that when solving a problem, the animal does not use one stereotypically performed method, but tries different methods that are the result of previously accumulated experience. Animals are trying not to perform different actions, but various operations and ultimately can solve the problem in different ways. For example, you can build a pyramid out of boxes to pick a hanging banana, or you can take the box apart and try to knock down the treat with separate planks. The operation ceases to be rigidly connected with the activity that meets a specific task. This is what makes intelligence noticeably different from any, even the most complex, skills. Since the intellectual behavior of animals is characterized by a reflection of not just the objective components of the environment, but reflects the relationships between them, here the operation is transferred not only according to the principle of similarity of things (for example, barriers) with which it was connected, but also according to the principle of similarity of relationships, connections things she responds to.

Despite the high level of development, the intelligence of mammals, in particular monkeys, has clear biological limitations. Along with other forms of behavior, it is entirely determined by the way of life and biological patterns, beyond which the animal cannot step. This is shown by numerous observations of great apes in nature. Thus, chimpanzees build rather complex wicker nests in which they spend the night, but they never build even the simplest rain shelters and during tropical downpours they get mercilessly wet. In natural conditions, monkeys rarely use tools, preferring, if necessary, to obtain more accessible food than to waste time and effort on obtaining hard-to-reach food.

The limitations of intellectual behavior were also shown in numerous experiments conducted by Ladygina-Kots on apes. For example, a male chimpanzee sometimes made stupid mistakes when using objects provided to him to push bait out of a pipe. He tried to push a piece of plywood into the pipe, despite the obvious discrepancy between its width and the diameter of the pipe, and began to nibble it only after a number of such unsuccessful attempts. According to Ladygina-Cotes, chimpanzees “are not able to immediately grasp the essential features in a new situation.”

Even the most complex manifestations of ape intelligence ultimately represent nothing more than the application in new conditions of a phylogenetically developed method of action. Monkeys are able to attract fruit to themselves with the help of a stick only because in natural conditions they often have to bend down a branch with a fruit hanging on it. It is the biological conditioning of all mental activity of monkeys, including anthropoids, that is the reason for the limitations of their intellectual abilities, the inability to establish a mental connection between ideas alone and their combination into images. The inability to mentally operate with ideas leads monkeys to the inability to understand true cause-and-effect relationships, since this is only possible with the help of concepts that are completely absent in monkeys, like all other animals.

Meanwhile, at this stage of the development of science, the problem of animal intelligence has not been sufficiently studied. Essentially, detailed experimental studies have so far been carried out only on monkeys, mainly higher ones, while the possibility of intellectual actions in other vertebrates has practically not been confirmed by evidentiary experimental data. At the same time, it is a mistake to believe that intelligence is inherent only to primates. Most likely, objective research by future animal psychologists will help shed light on this difficult but very interesting issue.

Ethological adaptations represent all behavioral responses aimed at the survival of individuals and, therefore, the species as a whole. Such reactions are:

Behavior when searching for food and a sexual partner,

Pairing,

Feeding offspring

Avoiding danger and protecting life in the event of a threat,

Aggression and threatening postures,

Kindness and many others.

Some behavioral reactions are inherited (instincts), others are acquired throughout life (conditioned reflexes). In different organisms the ratio of instinctive and conditioned reflex behavior is not the same. For example, in invertebrates and lower chordates, instinctive behavior predominates, and in higher mammals (primates, carnivores), conditioned reflex behavior predominates. Humans have the highest level of behavioral adaptability, based on the mechanisms of higher nervous activity.

Particularly important are adaptations that protect the offspring from enemies.

Caring for offspring can manifest itself in different forms. Many fish guard eggs laid between stones, actively driving away and biting approaching potential enemies. Azov and Caspian gobies lay eggs in holes dug in the bottom and then guard them throughout their development. The male stickleback builds a nest with an exit and an entrance. Some American catfish stick their eggs to their belly and carry them on them throughout their development. Many fish hatch eggs in their mouths or even in their stomachs. During this time, the parent does not eat anything. The hatched fry stay close to the female (or male, depending on the species) for some time and, when in danger, hide in the mouth of the parent. There are species of frogs in which the eggs develop in a special brood pouch on the back or in the vocal sacs of the male.

The greatest safety of the offspring is achieved, obviously, in those cases when the embryos develop in the mother's body. Fecundity in these cases decreases, but this is compensated by an increase in the survival rate of the young.

In arthropods and lower vertebrates, the resulting larvae lead an independent lifestyle and do not depend on their parents. But in some cases, parental care for their offspring manifests itself in the form of providing them with food. The famous French naturalist J.A. Fabre was the first to describe this behavior in solitary wasps. Wasps attack beetles, spiders, crickets, praying mantises, caterpillars of various butterflies, immobilize them, plunging their sting directly into ganglia, and lay eggs on them. Hatching wasp larvae are provided with food: they feed on the tissues of a living victim, grow and then pupate.

The described examples of care for offspring in arthropods and lower vertebrates occur in a very small number of species. In most cases, fertilized eggs are abandoned to their fate. This explains the very high fertility of invertebrates and lower vertebrates. A large number of descendants in conditions of high extermination of juveniles serves as a means of struggle for the existence of the species.

Much more complex and diverse forms of care for offspring are observed in higher vertebrates. Complex instincts and the ability to individually learn allow them to raise offspring with much greater success. Thus, birds lay fertilized eggs in special structures - nests, and not just in the external environment, as all species of lower classes do. The eggs develop under the influence of the heat imparted to them by the body of the parents, and do not depend on the accidents of the weather. Parents protect the nest from enemies in one way or another. Hatched chicks are not left to fend for themselves, but long time feed and protect them. All this dramatically increases the efficiency of reproduction in birds.

Forms of behavior in mammals reach the highest degree of development. This also manifests itself in relation to the cubs. Animals not only feed their offspring, but also teach them how to catch prey. Even Charles Darwin noted that predatory animals teach their cubs to avoid dangers, including hunters.

Thus, individuals with more advanced forms of caring for offspring survive in greater numbers and pass on these traits further by inheritance.

Species adaptations are discovered when analyzing a group of individuals of the same species; they are very diverse in their manifestation. The main ones are various congruences, the level of mutability, intraspecific polymorphism, the level of abundance and optimal population density.

Congruences represent all morphophysiological and behavioral features that contribute to the existence of a species as an integral system. Reproductive congruences ensure reproduction. Some of them are directly related to reproduction (correspondence of genital organs, adaptations to feeding, etc.), while others are only indirect (various signal signs: visual - mating attire, ritual behavior; sound - birdsong, roar of a male deer during the rut and others; chemical - various attractants, for example, insect pheromones, secretions from artiodactyls, cats, dogs, etc.).

Congruences include all forms of intraspecific cooperation, constitutional, trophic and reproductive. Constitutional cooperation is expressed in the coordinated actions of organisms in unfavorable conditions which increase the chances of survival. In winter, bees gather in a ball, and the heat they generate is spent on joint warming. In this case, the highest temperature will be in the center of the ball and individuals from the periphery (where it is colder) will constantly strive there. In this way, the insects constantly move and, through joint efforts, they survive the winter safely. Penguins also cluster in a close group during incubation, sheep during cold weather, etc.

Trophic cooperation consists of the union of organisms for the purpose of obtaining food. Joint activity in this direction makes the process more productive. For example, a pack of wolves hunts much more efficiently than an individual. At the same time, in many species there is a division of responsibilities - some individuals separate the chosen victim from the main herd and drive it into ambush, where their relatives are hiding, etc. In plants, such cooperation is expressed in joint shading of the soil, which helps retain moisture in it.

Reproductive cooperation increases reproductive success and promotes the survival of offspring. In many birds, individuals gather on lekking grounds, and in such conditions it is easier to find a potential partner. The same thing happens at spawning grounds, rookeries of pinnipeds, etc. The likelihood of pollination in plants increases when they grow in groups and the distance between individual individuals is small.

Mutability - represents the frequency of mutations per unit of time (number of generations) and per gene. Each species has its own frequency, which is determined by the level of stability of the genetic material and resistance to mutagens. Mutations make populations heteromorphic and provide material for selection. Both excessively high and insufficient mutability are dangerous for the species. In the first case, there is a threat to the integrity of the species, and in the second, it is impossible for selection to take place.

Intraspecific polymorphism determines the unique combination of alleles in different individuals. The cause of polymorphism is sexual reproduction, which provides combinative variability, and mutations that change the substrate of heredity. Maintaining intraspecific polymorphism ensures the stability of the species and guarantees its existence in different conditions environment.

The population level determines the extreme values of the number of individuals of a species. A decrease in numbers below a threshold level leads to the death of the species. This is due to the impossibility of meeting partners, disruption of intraspecific adaptation, etc. An excessive increase in numbers is also detrimental, since it undermines the food supply, contributes to the accumulation of sick and weakened individuals in the population, and in some this leads to the development of stress.

The optimal population density shows the specific features of the coexistence of individuals for each species. Many organisms prefer a solitary lifestyle and meet only to mate. This is how, for example, tigers, leopards, male elephants, etc. behave. Others have a strong instinct for collectivity, so they need high numbers. For example, the most numerous groups among vertebrates were formed by American passenger pigeons, whose flocks numbered billions (!) of individuals. After their numbers were undermined by humans, passenger pigeons stopped reproducing and the species disappeared.

Related information.

The problem of thinking and intelligence of animals has not given scientists peace of mind for many years. Dictionaries define intelligence inherent in representatives of the animal world as the highest form of mental activity, characteristic of monkeys and some other vertebrates. The peculiarity of intelligence is the ability of a creature to display the components of the world in which it lives, as well as relationships, situations, and connecting events. They speak of intelligence if an animal is able to deal with complex problems using non-stereotypical approaches, different options, including transference. Intelligence allows one to resort to various information previously obtained by an individual through personal experience.

What are we talking about?

Scientists, trying to assess the level of intelligence of animals, realized that this feature of an individual’s mental activity is manifested mainly by thought processes. At the same time, the thinking inherent in representatives of the animal world does not always have a specific motor or sensory character. Thinking proceeds in relation to objects, in practice it is expressed by the ability to analyze the connections of phenomena and synthesize them. Thinking takes place in relation to some specific situation in which the individual finds itself, which the animal observes.

As further research has shown, intelligence is determined by the laws of biology. This makes it possible to distinguish it from the background of what is inherent in a person. Even individuals relatively close to our species are unable to think abstractly. Representatives of the animal world do not have access to conceptual thinking. Current research allows us to say with certainty that animals are incapable of perceiving fundamental connections between cause and effect.

What did you think before?

Since ancient times, people have thought about how and in what categories representatives of the animal world think. Quite interesting calculations dedicated to this can be found in Arabic books. In those days, it was believed that the intellect and language of animals and humans, although different, were inherent in the former and were sufficient to understand the superiority of the latter. Some representatives of Arab tribes seriously believed that lions, looking at representatives of humanity, see not just another living creature, but a divine image, because of which the animal is filled with humility. Some believed that when a lion sees a person, he begins to think about possible methods actions, understands that the methods of defense are unpredictable for him, so he should move out of sight so as not to get hurt. In those days, the Arabs believed that lions thought in the same way as humans, capable of analyzing the presence of dangerous products and weapons in the person they met, and also assessing risks by weighing the facts.

Subsequently, such ideas were not forgotten. For example, psychologists who studied and compared the intelligence of animals and humans, back in the last century, created approximately the same opuses, in which they explained in detail the line of thought of a representative of the animal world. It is worth noting that such works were popular and appreciated by the audience. In earlier times, usually the study of the non-human psyche was reduced to fortune-telling and judgments about what thoughts animals think. People didn’t even think about whether thoughts as a category are inherent in our smaller brothers. Previously, practically no differences were found between animals and humans.

Animal psychology: seriously and not so seriously

Today this direction (almost scientific, but not quite) is called anecdotal zoopsychology. As part of such studies, intelligence maps of wild animals, the ability to think in representatives of the animal world living near humans, were compiled and assessed based on random observations, facts noticed by someone, which were not given an adequate explanation. Even the anecdotes that existed among hunters were largely influenced - surprisingly, at some point they also became the basis for scientific calculations. Speculative speculation played a role. It would seem that anecdotal could not harm anyone, but such ideas slowed down the development of scientific progress and for a long time discredited animal psychology as a field of serious research. People began to say that the study of the animal psyche belongs to the zone of the absurd; animal psychology is impossible and incredible in principle.

Further progress in scientific research in the field of animal skills and intelligence has shown that animal psychology has its place. Moreover, responsible scientists who have devoted themselves to this issue have clearly demonstrated the importance of conducting adequate research work. The true approach does not imply the humanization of representatives of the animal world, but specializes in the study of the psyche - simplified in comparison with the human one. As tests have shown, the inherent psyche of animals is organized and structured in a completely different way from the human psyche, which made determining its inherent structure an even more curious task.

Differences: are there any?

By comparing the intelligence of animals and humans, it was established that the psyche of representatives of our species is determined by the peculiarities of formation, fundamentally different from all others. For a person, labor, as well as social practices, became the basis. In animals, such phenomena are absent in principle. At the same time, the human psyche and the consciousness of representatives of the species originated in ancient times, even before the advent of humanity - among our ancestors. To navigate this issue, scientists conducted comparative studies.

In many ways, successes in the study of the intelligence inherent in representatives of the animal world are due to the work of the Soviet scientist Severtsov. Studying the intelligence of individuals belonging to different evolutionary stages is necessary in order to navigate the laws of evolution. Severtsov proved that the psyche is one of the key aspects of animal evolution.

Names and ideas

Lenin also spoke about the importance of animals with intelligence. In his works one can find an indication of the opinion that the development of the mind of representatives of the animal world is a field of scientific research, which should be a dialectical basis and the foundation of cognitive theory. In general, they say that the topics of zoopsychological scientific work extend beyond the highly specialized sphere of psychologists working with animals. However, people who do not agree with materialistic ideas believe that it is impossible to know the world. This affected the field of studying the psyche of animals and their intellectual capabilities.

Dubois-Reymond in his works identified seven key mysteries that will never be explored by science. He spoke about the powerlessness of science and man's inability to understand the world. The fifth point out of seven was the emergence of consciousness, and the sixth was the development of thinking, and with it the ability to speak coherently. The scientist devoted other points to biological and physical general problems. Dubois-Reymond wrote his works as a representative of a reactionary ideological movement, which turned out to be stronger than the desire of natural scientists of that time to study the psyche of humans and animals. Ultimately, at that moment, intelligence was recognized as a gift from the Almighty.

To know: is it possible?

Today it has clearly been proven that Dubois-Reymond's postulates were incorrect. It became clear that those who considered research designed to determine whether animals have intelligence to be far from reality and useless were also wrong. However, the study of these areas for scientists of our day is a considerable difficulty, because it is impossible to get into the soul of a representative of the living world, no matter who and what he may be, which means it is extremely difficult to judge the manifestations by drawing simple analogies with what is already known for certain known. It is even more unacceptable to guess, so as not to return to the previous anecdotal science.

Quite interesting in this matter are Fischel’s works on whether animals have intelligence, what it is like and where it came from. This scientist talks about his personal research experience. Fischel is valued for his many contributions to the study of both animal and human psychology. His first known work was published in 1938, and several more works were published later. From year to year, on the initiative of the scientist, colloquia were organized on the intelligence and psychology of animals. This turned out to be useful for representatives of the agricultural sector of the national industry.

Step by step

While studying the problem of animal intelligence, Fischel placed a special emphasis on identifying the presence of goals among representatives of this world. No less attention is paid to the emotional state of the subject and the experiences that animals face. Emotions are associated with behavioral motivation, as they enhance certain physiological functions of the body and lead to increased vital activity. Such activity is directed towards specific objects or processes in the environment in which the individual lives. Research devoted to this problem was published in its original form, then republished, and at present the most interesting work seems to be the one published in 1967.

Studying the problem of animal intelligence and the nuances of brain activity, Fischel resorted to cybernetic achievements. At the same time, the scientist did not seek association biological processes in the central nervous system and physical, characteristic of models in cybernetics. He set himself the task of clearly proving that only the result is the same, but the processes leading to it are very different. The specificity of what is occurring is considered one of the the most important aspects studying brain functionality. For scientists, the result is important, but the study of the processes in the brain that lead to it is considered even more significant. Presumably, animal psychological research in the future will finally reveal the features of what is happening in the central nervous system of animals at different levels.

Theory and practice

Modern research into human and animal intelligence is largely based on Pavlov's earlier study of monkeys. Particularly interesting are the works organized with the involvement of anthropoid species. As has been established for certain, monkeys differ from other representatives of the animal world in their unique manual thinking, which is probably a prerequisite for understanding and primary work on a task. Manual thinking is the name given to an animal's ability to receive information and think through its hands. Accordingly, experience appears as a result of practical analysis of the objects that the individual manipulates. This kind of thinking takes place in action; it appears when feeling, trying to break or open a certain product. Intellect and thinking are active when feeding, during play, and the individual studies the subject and realizes the connections of its elements.

Studying the intelligence of humans and animals, they found that for the latter, only awareness of relationships that can be touched and seen is available. This is the basic condition of monkey thinking, which limits the intellectual capabilities of the individual. However, even such qualities have not been found in other animals, so manual thinking is considered to be unique to monkeys. This does not exclude the presence of rudiments of intelligence in representatives of other species.

Causes, effects and thinking

When studying animal intelligence, scientists, of course, pay special attention to monkeys, but this does not mean that their ability to think should be overestimated. This is especially true when considering lower varieties. Observations were made of some individuals who, it would seem, created some kind of tool from improvised material that could achieve the desired goal. An adequate assessment of the observations showed that the animal did not understand the real possibilities of using what it created. Consequently, cause-and-effect relationships remained elusive to him. Everything is somewhat more complicated in anthropoid varieties, which are able to assess what causes lead to specific consequences, but their ability to analyze the situation in such a way is very limited.

It cannot be said that animal intelligence has nothing in common with humans, since, as scientists have established, initially our ancestors had the ability to think only with their hands. Labor is the primary source of the human mind, and it is also the foundation of intellectual abilities. It's about about manual labor. He cannot be imagined without the use of tools, and only those who have hands derived from monkeys can use them. Hands worked as tools, and this became the foundation of progress - manual thinking was overcome, and new prospects for the development of intelligence appeared. At the same time, the hands of individuals acquired features inherent to modern man.

Who's the smartest?

Leaving aside the theoretical basis, it is worth turning to the works of modern researchers devoted to animals with high intelligence. As the observations and study of the characteristics of reactions have shown, some representatives of the animal world that surround us are characterized by quite powerful mental abilities. Many of our compatriots remember Tortilla the turtle from childhood. This animal in our country is associated with wisdom. According to many modern researchers, this attitude has an absolutely logical justification: some species of turtles have good intellectual abilities. These representatives of the animal world can learn and easily find a way out when they find themselves in a maze. The turtle is easy to make into a pet and quickly learns the skills of other turtles of the same species. It is known that turtles have the ability to quickly overcome their fear of humans, so they begin to eat directly from people's hands.

Studying the intelligence of animals, scientists turned their attention to the world of mollusks and found that exceptional capabilities are inherent in cephalopods. Among all their relatives they are the smartest. Many species are capable of mimicry. Octopuses easily pass memory tests. They are naturally given excellent navigation abilities. Squids live in schools and, according to scientists, have a special codified language that allows individuals to interact.

So different, but all smart

While the presence of intelligence in domestic animals seems obvious to many, because the representatives of the animal world around us learn easily and quickly, in insects this feature is not so pronounced. And yet bees, according to some, have quite good abilities. They stand out from other insects. It is known that bees are able to navigate by the star and perceive the electromagnetic waves of the planet. They remember things they see. They are social creatures that interact with each other through dance.

While studying the intelligence of animals, we paid attention to crocodiles. Some time ago, these mammals were associated with the image of true demons in the flesh, but relatively recent studies prove that this is wrong. Representatives of this species are characterized by playfulness. In addition, a crocodile can be taught a lot. It is known that once such a mammal lived with a person who healed him from a wound until his death. The crocodile swam in the pool with someone he recognized as a friend, played games, and sometimes even imitated an attack, but not seriously. The owner could stroke his pet, kiss, hug.

Curious: what else?

Sheep are no less attractive. It is traditionally accepted to think that these are very, very stupid animals, but recent scientific works devoted to this topic show excellent memory for faces inherent in sheep. These are social individuals who can build relationships. The key feature of representatives of this species is their tendency to be afraid of everything. At the same time, sheep tend to hide their weaknesses and try to hide any illnesses. In this aspect, their behavior is comparable to that of humans.

Pigeons are also quite interesting. The use of these birds to deliver mail has been known for quite some time. It was invented because these birds have a natural instinct to strive home. From Russian history we know that Princess Olga was well aware of this quality of birds and used it to achieve her political goals. The pigeon brain is able to process a large amount of information and store it for a long time. The pigeon receives information through all its senses. His visual system is such that everything useless is cut off, while his vision is sharp, perfectly combined with an impeccable memory. Thanks to this quality, the pigeon easily plans a route, focusing on the visually received images.

Living near us

Studying the inherent intelligence and thinking abilities of animals, scientists turned their attention to horses. Many representatives of this species are cunning, quick-witted, and perfectly remember what is happening. Akhal-Teke species are known to be monogamous. Once they choose an owner, they devote their lives to him. All horses are capable of learning. A smart horse will not step on its owner's foot. But animals specially trained to disperse crowds will not stand on ceremony.

Raccoons are very curious, often living near human homes. In recent years, they have attracted public attention. very smart. Striving for food, they are able to use available tools and build logical sequential chains. A raccoon remembers the solution to a problem for an average of three years.

At the stage of animal intelligence, the first forms of thinking appear - “manual thinking of monkeys”, the transfer of the found principle to new conditions; the ability to solve one problem in different ways; the ability to understand the surrounding reality, regardless of the presence of biological needs. The process of orientation under task conditions no longer occurs under the conditions of motor tests, but precedes them: the program of actions is prepared intellectually, and movements are only the executive part of orientation. Particularly complex forms of behavior with a complex dismembered structure are formed. Such complex activity is self-regulating in nature.

The complexity of perception processes (imagery) and the strength of memory increases.

However Even the most complex animal behavior has boundaries that separate it from humans:

1. changeable behavior always maintains connection with biological motives and cannot surpass them.

2. it is always determined directly perceived stimuli or traces of previous experience.

3. the sources of individual behavior are limited: this is either the experience of the species or the experience of a given individual. There is no transfer of experience of past generations in the form of material objects.

A person appears highest form mental reflection - consciousness. Unlike animals, humans:

1. has the ability to make tools with the help of other tools. It means separation of action from biological motive and, thus, the emergence of another type of activity - labor. In consciousness, motive and goal are separated. Making tools for future use presupposes the presence of an image of future action, i.e. the emergence of a plane of consciousness.

2. The development of a person and his psyche is determined not only by biological, but to a greater extent by social motives.

3. A person has a division of labor, i.e. the establishment of social relations on the basis of non-biological activities.

4. a person experiences materialization of the experience of labor operations (in the form of a tool) with the ability to store this experience and transfer it to subsequent generations in the form of material culture.

5. Human language as a system of signals is not tied to specific situations. Human speech has a semantic, emotional and expressive basis.

6. Human society arises on the basis of joint labor activity, unknown and inaccessible to animals.

The origin of human consciousness in anthropogenesis.

We must now consider in more detail the qualitative features of the human psyche, which decisively distinguished him from the animal world. These features arose in the process of anthropogenesis and the cultural history of mankind and were directly related to the transition of man from the biological to the social path of development. The main event here was the emergence consciousness.

The classics of Marxism repeatedly expressed the idea that the leading factors in the emergence of consciousness were work And language. These general provisions received specific psychological development in the works of Soviet psychologists L. S. Vygotsky, S. Ya. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontiev and others.

A. N. Leontiev has a hypothesis about the origin of consciousness. According to his definition, conscious reflection is a reflection of objective reality in which its “objective stable properties” are highlighted, “regardless of the subject’s relationship to it,” i.e. biological impartiality, conscious reflection.

For an animal, an object is reflected as having a direct relationship to one or another biological motive. In humans, according to A. N. Leontyev, with the advent of consciousness the world begins to be reflected as such, independently of biological purposes, and in this sense “objectively”.

The impetus for the emergence of consciousness was the emergence of a new form of activity - collective work. Any joint work presupposes division of labor. This means that different members of the team begin to perform different operations, and different in one very significant respect: some operations immediately lead to a biologically useful result, while others do not give such a result, but act only as a condition for its achievement. Considered in themselves, such operations appear biologically meaningless.

For example, the pursuit and killing of game by a hunter directly responds to the biological motive - obtaining food. In contrast to this, the actions of the beater, who drives the game away from himself, not only have no independent meaning, but also, it would seem, are directly opposite to what should be done. However, they have a real meaning in the context of a collective activity - joint hunting. The same can be said about the actions of making tools, etc.

So, in conditions of collective work, for the first time, operations appear that are not directly aimed at the object of need - a biological motive, but only have in mind intermediate result.

Within the framework of individual activity, this result becomes independent purpose. Thus, for the subject the purpose of an activity is separated from its motive, accordingly, its new unit is distinguished in the activity - action. In terms of mental reflection, this is accompanied by the experience sense actions. After all, in order for a person to be encouraged to perform an action that leads only to an intermediate result, he must understand connection of this result with a motive, that is, to “discover” its meaning for oneself. Meaning, according to the definition of A. N. Leontiev, there is reflection of the relationship between the purpose of an action and the motive.

Actions begin to be directed towards an increasingly wider range of objects, and knowledge of the “objective stable properties” of these objects turns out to be a vital necessity. This is where the role of the second factor in the development of consciousness manifests itself - speech and language.

Most likely, the first elements of human speech appeared during the performance of joint labor actions. It can be assumed that the first words indicated certain actions, tools, objects; these were also “orders” addressed to the partner in joint action. But very soon the language outgrew such “indicative” and “organizing” functions. After all, every word not only denotes, but also generalizes. Being assigned to a whole class of similar actions, objects or situations, it began to highlight their common stable properties. Thus, the results of cognition began to be recorded in words.

The processes of development of labor and language proceeded in parallel, closely intertwined with each other.

A unique feature of human language is its ability to accumulate knowledge acquired by generations of people. Thanks to her language has become the carrier of social consciousness. Each person, in the course of individual development through language acquisition, is introduced to “shared knowledge,” and only thanks to this is his individual consciousness formed. Thus, meanings and language values turned out, according to A. N. Leontiev, the main components of human consciousness.

L. S. Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) showed that a person develops special kind mental functions, which he called “higher mental functions,” which are completely absent in animals. These functions constitute the highest level of the human psyche, generally called consciousness. They are formed during and through social interactions. In other words, higher mental functions have social nature.

The ability to master nature did not pass without a trace for man in one very important respect: he also learned to master his own psyche. Appeared arbitrary forms of activity, or higher mental functions. The lowest floor in the structure of activity is occupied by psychophysiological functions: sensory function, motor, mnemonic, etc. L. S. Vygotsky calls them inferior, or natural, mental functions. Animals also have them. In humans, arbitrary forms of such functions appear, which L. S. Vygotsky calls highest: a person can force himself to remember some material, pay attention to some object, and organize his mental activity.

According to L. S. Vygotsky, there is a two-way connection here: these changes in the human psyche act simultaneously as a consequence of his changed relationship with nature, and as a factor that ensures these changes. After all, if a person’s life activity comes down not to adapting to nature, but to changing it, then his actions must be carried out according to some plan, subordinate to some goals. So, by setting and realizing external goals, at some point a person begins to set and achieve internal goals, that is, he learns to manage himself. Thus, the first process stimulates the second. At the same time, progress in self-organization helps to solve external problems more effectively.

So, mastering nature and mastering one’s own behavior are parallel processes that are deeply interconnected.

Just as a person masters nature with the help of tools, he masters his own behavior also with the help of tools, but only weapons of a special kind - psychological.

For example, external means are used for memorization - this signs some content. Sometimes such means are simple (knot, claw) and can be associated with any content; sometimes they are more differentiated (a system of various notches, knots) and more closely related to the memorized content, representing the rudiments of writing. The main and general thing is that such means-signs, by the fact of their appearance and use, generate a new structure of memorization as a mental process. A person mediates his actions with the help of signs. The person himself introduces an additional stimulus, which has no organic connection with the situation and therefore represents an artificial means-sign; with the help of this sign he masters behavior - remembers, makes choices, etc.

Nothing like this can be imagined in animals.

So, labor created man, communication in the process of labor gave birth to speech. The first words ensured the organization of joint actions. These were words-orders addressed to another and directing his actions: “do this”, “take this”, “go there”, etc. Then a fundamentally important event happened: the man began to turn words-orders towards himself! From the external command function of the word its internal organizing function was born. Vygotsky called the transformation of external functions into internal functions a process interiorization.

IN ontogenesis essentially the same thing is observed. L. S. Vygotsky identifies here the following stages of internalization:

First: an adult uses a word to influence a child, encouraging him to do something.

Second: the child adopts the adult’s method of address and begins to influence the adult with words.

Third: the child begins to influence himself with words. Egocentric speech arises, which is an intermediate stage between speech addressed to another and speech addressed to oneself.

Thus, in the development of a child, two things happen: most important events: birth of a sign-means in the process of communication and transforming it from an external form into an internal one, i.e. its internalization.