In five pages cognition and intelligence as they relate to animals are discussed through the examination of discipline in the 1976 text The Question of Animal Awareness Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience by Donald Griffin, Alex the grey African Congo parrot, rhesus monkeys, and the bottlenose dolphin. Twelve sources are cited in the bibliography.
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paradigm that informs and involves several disciplines, including artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cognitive ethology, and the philosophy of mind" (Peterson, 1997; p. 615). Because of the many disciplines
that cognitive science encompasses, there are widely varied views and applications of research. Not all are convinced that cognitive ethology is a valid
course of study, particularly in terms of the philosophy of mind branch of cognitive science: "Cognitive ethologists follow the principle of conservatism in determining whether to attribute mental states
to animals, but the principle does not appear to be justified" (Sober, 2001; p. 225). Researchers studying language and communication in animals hold very different opinions. Origins
Cognitive ethology had its beginnings in the 1970s, stemming from the work of Donald Griffin in his 1940s research of bats use of sonar to
navigate and to locate prey (Snowdon, 1991). That work was regarded as being "among the most technically sophisticated and intellectually exacting research on animal behavior" (Snowdon, 1991; p. 813),
but Griffins subsequent publications on the subject in 1976 and 1984 resulted in questioning by the scientific community of whether Griffins work had remained valid with the passage of time.
Those misgivings largely fell away with Griffins studies into the communication systems of bees. He used that work to prove animal cognition,
concluding "that the buzzing of bees was a symbol of their communication, signifying animal awareness" (Lewin, 1994; p. 29). It was that work that later evolved into the discipline
of cognitive ethology. Research Though Griffins early work was with bee colonies, most research has centered on "higher" animals such as Rhesus monkeys