The difference between the intellectual behavior of animals and humans. Rating of animals by intelligence and intelligence The origin of human and animal intelligence

Animals are much smarter than we think: they can solve puzzles, learn words, and communicate with each other in far-from-primitive ways.

1. Crows can solve puzzles like five-year-olds

It turns out that crows have the ability to solve problems. The birds were shown cylinders filled with water in which some kind of delicacy was floating. The crows quickly realized that in order to get a tasty treat, it was necessary to raise the water level, so they threw foreign objects into the cylinder. In addition, the birds realized that they would get treats faster from the cylinder, where the water level was higher, and also if they threw heavy objects into the cylinder, which would sink to the bottom rather than float on the surface. In more interesting cases, crows even managed to bend a piece of wire to fish out food from a narrow cylinder. In general, the researchers came to the conclusion that in terms of problem solving, crows are on the same level as children 5-7 years old.

2. Dolphins call each other by names, each of which is unique

Dolphins are very intelligent creatures. In captivity, they can easily be taught to perform various tasks in exchange for a treat, and they can also imitate for the sake of jokes human behavior. IN wildlife dolphins, for example, protect their snouts with sea sponges when hunting spiny fish, and then use their spines to extract eels from crevices. Each dolphin has its own characteristic whistle, which can be interpreted as its name. A dolphin will swim towards a fellow whose whistle sounds related, and will most likely ignore a dolphin it does not know. When a female loses her baby, she will make a baby whistle until the baby is found.

3. Elephants can interact with each other and also show empathy.

For many years, scientists have observed elephants and discovered that they are able to cooperate and communicate effectively. Related elephant families unite and travel in entire clans, communicating using low-frequency sounds. From time to time, they trample circles around their young to protect them from predators, or carry out well-coordinated campaigns to kidnap elephant calves from rival clans to demonstrate their superiority.

In addition, elephants are able to show empathy. In general, animals do not show much interest in their dead relatives: they can sniff them or eat them. Elephants, on the other hand, show emotion towards elephant remains, lingering near them and expressing signs of distress and agitation. In one experiment, African elephants were shown the skulls of an elephant, a buffalo, and a rhinoceros. The elephants focused their attention on the skull of their relative. Finally, the researchers were able to observe how elephants comfort each other. Typically, when an elephant is worried, it makes sounds and raises its ears. Other elephants from his clan approach him, stroke his head with their trunks, or put their trunks in his mouth.

4. Dogs can learn hundreds of words

There is a lot of evidence of canine intelligence, but one of the most bright examples- This is a collie named Chaser. Psychologist John Pilley trained Chaser to recognize the names of 1,022 different toys. When Pilly named a specific toy, Chaser did it 95% of the time. right choice. Pilley recently taught Chaser verbs in addition to the nouns he already knew. Now the dog can follow orders such as choosing a toy, poking it with its nose, or placing its paw on it. This progress took a lot of time, but it is still an amazing achievement of canine intelligence.

5. Chimpanzees are phenomenal at solving memory puzzles.

Considering that chimpanzees are our closest relatives, their intelligence is understandable. However, their level of intelligence (in some areas) may well rival that of humans. A chimpanzee named Ayumu, who lives in research institute in Kyoto (Japan), became world famous thanks to his outstanding visual memory. He is shown nine numbers on the screen for a split second, and then Ayumu reproduces their location from memory. Moreover, a chimpanzee can beat any person in this game. Scientists still don't fully understand how Ayumu does this, but they speculate that the chimpanzee is an instant quantifier, meaning he looks at a series of objects and remembers them, rather than counting them sequentially.

Cockatoos, like crows, can solve complex puzzles in order to get a treat. Moreover, the puzzles can be really very complex: for example, opening a box (which contains a cashew nut) by first removing the pin, unscrewing and pulling out the bolt, turning the wheel and, finally, releasing the latch. This takes a lot of time because cockatoos don't have fingers. One bird took almost two hours to solve this problem, but achieved its goal, proving that birds are capable of setting goals and achieving them. The other birds in the experiment watched the first cockatoo and then completed the task much faster. The puzzle was then changed to place the five steps to open the box in a different order. But the birds coped with this task.

The intelligence of the octopus is difficult to study for several reasons: they are aquatic creatures, they practically do not survive in captivity, most of them live deep in the ocean. Their living environment is different from ours, so it is quite understandable that their intellect is aimed at solving and achieving completely different goals. The octopus has the largest brain among invertebrate animals; its brain has more neurons than the human brain. However, 60% of these neurons are located in the tentacles, which means that octopuses have very smart tentacles. If the tentacle is cut off, it can crawl back, grab food and lift it to the place where the mouth should be. In addition, octopuses are great aesthetes and, possibly, colorblind. They collect rocks of specific colors to camouflage their lair, and many species can change color to blend in with their surroundings. There are suggestions that octopuses sense color with their skin and react to it accordingly.

Man is accustomed to consider himself the most intelligent creature on Earth. Despite his very weak physical capabilities, he controls the lion's share of the land and makes attempts to “enslave” the World Ocean. As for animals, their importance was downplayed allegedly due to a lack of intelligence. But don't underestimate mental abilities our smaller brothers, because some of them are not as stupid as they seem at first glance.

Even though animals do not have sufficient intelligence to be called “intelligent,” some of them are definitely smarter and smarter than others. For example, pigs. They are easy to learn, have excellent memory and demonstrate good results in intelligence tests.

A certain level of intelligence has been observed in parrots, in particular in African Grays. Yes, in most cases they simply repeat the sounds they hear without understanding their meaning, but this is due to lack of proper training. It has been proven that they are able to associate words with the objects that they represent, as well as perceive the concept of shape, color, and serial number.

Squirrels are not only smart, but also cunning. They have long learned that man is a source of food. If you once fed a squirrel, then it is likely that the next day it will be waiting for you in the same place, “recognize” and take the food again. Moreover, she will take as much as you give - she simply hides the leftover food, remembering the “hiding place”.

“Man’s best friend” - a dog - is a very intelligent creature. With proper training, she is able to understand 250 words and gestures, count to five, and perform simple mathematical operations. It is worth mentioning that the most smart breed dogs - poodles.

Of course, this rating could not do without cats. Domestic cats are very smart - their main sign of intelligence is the ability to adapt. Moreover, if your dog does not follow a command that you taught it, this does not mean that it has forgotten it. Rather, she simply does not want to fulfill it: the ability to say “no” is also a sign of intelligence and willpower.

There are legends about the intelligence of ravens - these birds are capable of doing incredible things to get to food, for example, cracking a nut, placing it under the wheels of a car, etc. When scientists decided to test whether the raven was truly endowed with intelligence, they began to give the bird water to drink from a deep jug, which it could not reach with its beak. The raven being tested came up with the idea of ​​throwing it into a container various items so that the water level rises. In general, these birds will definitely find a way out of any situation!

What you hardly expected to see in this ranking is octopuses! These marine invertebrates are endowed with very impressive brains relative to their body weight. They are trainable and have good memory, distinguish geometric shapes, recognize people, get used to those who feed them. Some mystics believe that octopuses are able to predict the future: just look at the epic with Paul, the “football oracle.”

The top three “smartest” animals are elephants. They recognize themselves in a mirror image, which is considered a sign of self-awareness, have excellent long-term memory and local orientation, know how to use tools (for example, branches as “fly swatters”), distinguish many sounds, and most importantly, are very susceptible to the death of their fellows. These giants know how to draw conclusions and empathize!

Chimpanzees, especially bonobos, are very intelligent creatures and the closest relatives of humans in the animal kingdom. Although chimpanzees cannot speak due to the structure of the vocal apparatus, they are able to communicate with their hands in sign language, use words figuratively, and create new concepts by combining known words. They are able to make tools (clear sticks from leaves, sharpen sticks and stones) and have a sense of humor. If you put a baby chimpanzee and a child next to each other, then until the age of 2, you will not find any difference between them intellectually (sometimes the chimpanzee turns out to be even smarter).

Perhaps the most powerful among animals are dolphins. And no wonder! The brain of a dolphin weighs about 1,700 g, and that of a human - 1,400 g, while the dolphin has twice as many convolutions in the cerebral cortex as a human. According to the latest scientific data from cognitive ethology and zoopsychology, dolphins not only have “ vocabulary"(up to 14,000 sound signals), which allows them to communicate with each other, but also have self-awareness, "social consciousness" and emotional empathy. Moreover, every dolphin has given name, to which he responds when his relatives turn to him! Obviously, humans are not the only “intelligent” creatures, although they are much more aggressive.

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; 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. Are formed especially complex shapes behavior with a complex dissected structure. 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 has a higher 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 possibility of storing this experience and passing it on 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 biological to social path 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 concrete 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 appearance new form activities - 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 pointed to 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 the language has become a native speaker public 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. 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 highest level 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 subject, 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, mastery of nature and mastery own behavior- parallel processes that are deeply interconnected.

Just as man masters nature with using tools, he masters his own behavior also with the help of tools, but only guns 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 that does not have 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 ontogeny 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.

Animals and people are multicellular organisms that have certain instincts and traits. But, unlike animals, man has self-awareness and thinking - the main characteristics that put him a step above other inhabitants of the living world.

Differences in thinking between humans and animals

Speech is the main feature that distinguishes humans from other mammals. Animals can make sounds, but they do not organize them into literate, intelligible and connected speech. In many ways, this feature is associated with intelligence and the structure of the vocal apparatus. There are other differences related to thinking, brain and intelligence:

• Creative and conscious activity. A person himself determines the framework of behavior, guided by social norms and standards, and also chooses a strategy for its activities in society. He has the ability to plan and forecast, no other is capable of this living creature living on Earth. All actions of animals are determined by instincts, and they do not separate themselves from nature.
• Transformation of the surrounding world. Animals adapt to their environment, forming behavior based on circumstances. Man himself produces material and spiritual values, culture, as well as the surrounding reality.
• Constantly growing needs. Unlike animals, people need spiritual and cultural self-development after satisfying the basic physiological needs. The demand for goods is constantly increasing, while for other mammals instinctive satisfaction of needs is sufficient.
• Thinking. Reasoning and inference are a trait of humans, but not of animals. Animals are not capable of such complex mental activity, although some monkeys have communicative capabilities.

Man is a creature that always strives for something more comfortable and perfect. For animals, it is enough to satisfy their needs for food, safety and sleep (as well as reproduction).

Physiological differences

On human body fur is present in much smaller volumes than in most other mammals. This is due to the fact that in the course of evolution, man has lost the need for protection from the cold and camouflage through natural physical qualities.

Another significant feature is upright posture. Only a person is able to move with a straight back on two legs. Some animals also move on 2 legs and occasionally use their arms, but they do not walk with a straight back.

The third follows from here physiological feature– availability of functional thumb, which is better developed than in monkeys. The finger significantly expands the possibilities of use various items and tools.

Only people on Earth can have a blush on their cheeks - this is 4 distinctive feature, however, the exact reasons for its manifestation are unknown to science.

Psychological and emotional characteristics

People can control their feelings and emotions, they know moral standards and other behavioral principles. Animals lack all this, the reproductive instinct is a partially uncontrollable need, but humans can restrain their desires.

Important! Man, unlike animals, is able to choose whether to reproduce or not. Not all people have a need for procreation.

The next special feature is the period of childhood. In humans, it lasts over 18 years, while in animals, adulthood occurs at 1-2 years of age. Human babies depending on their parents, they stay tens of times longer than baby animals.

People and animals are living organisms that are equally afraid of pain and danger, capable of being scared and remaining in a calm state. However, human thinking abilities and intellect have brought him far ahead in the process of evolution.

Intelligence - this concept is defined quite heterogeneously, but in general view mean individual characteristics, attributed to the cognitive sphere, primarily to thinking, memory, perception, attention, etc. This implies a certain level of development of the mental activity of the individual, providing the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and effectively use it in the course of life - the ability to carry out the process of cognition and to effective solution problems, in particular when mastering a new range of life tasks.

Animal intelligence refers to higher form form mental activity animals (monkeys and a number of other higher vertebrates), characterized by the display of not only the objective components of the environment, but also their relationships and connections (situations), as well as a non-stereotypical solution complex tasks in various ways with transfer and use various operations learned as a result of previous individual experience.

The intelligence of animals is manifested in the processes of thinking, which in animals always has a specific sensory-motor character, is objectively related and is expressed in the practical analysis and synthesis of established connections between phenomena and objects directly perceived in a visually observable situation. It is entirely limited by biological laws, which determines its fundamentally qualitative difference from human thinking, the inability of even apes to abstract conceptual thinking and understanding of fundamental cause-and-effect relationships.

“The psyche of most mammalian animals remains at the stage of the perceptual psyche, but the most highly organized of them rise to one more stage of development: a transition occurs to the stage of intelligence. When speaking about the stage of intelligence, we first of all mean the activity of anthropoids, that is, great apes.”

In fact, at each stage of development, intelligence acquires qualitatively specific forms. The main “leap” in the development of intelligence, the first rudiments or biological prerequisites of which appear in primates, in apes, is associated with the transition from biological forms of existence to historical ones and the development of social and labor activity in man: by influencing nature and changing it, he begins to - to get to know her in a new way; during this cognitive activity specifically human intelligence is manifested and formed; being a prerequisite for specific forms human activity, he is at the same time its result. This is development human intelligence, thinking, is inextricably linked with the development of human consciousness. Consciousness is the highest level of mental development, inherent exclusively to humans. Its development is due social conditions and is always purposeful and active.

Thus, intelligent behavior is the pinnacle mental development animals. It is characterized by the transfer of learned individual experience to new situations, but there is no generalization of the method of solution and abstraction. The development of intelligence in animals is subject only to biological laws, whereas in humans it is of a social nature.