The difference between the intellectual behavior of animals and human. Intelligent Animal Behavior

Intelligent Behavior common to many animal species. A feature of this stage is the ability of the animal to find, "invent" a new way of solving and, moreover, to transfer this method to another task, and sometimes quite complex.

The difference between skill and intellectual behavior is clearly seen in the following example. In the laboratory of I.P. Pavlov conducted an experiment - a chimpanzee named Raphael was taught to pour water on a fire. It was done like this. A banana was placed in the feeder, and a fire was lit in front of it. Rafael could get the banana only by extinguishing it. Chimpanzees were taught to do this by scooping water out of a tank into a mug and lighting a fire.

After he learned to do it well, the task was made more difficult. Rafts were set up on the lake. On one of them was Raphael and a banana feeder with a fire burning in front of it. The water tank was placed on another raft. Both plots were connected by a narrow bridge. Around the rafts, of course, there was water. However, Raphael, in order to get a banana, moved along the bridge to another raft, scooped up water from the tank, returned back and filled the fire.

Somewhat later, this experiment was repeated with other chimpanzee monkeys. One of them did not get over the bridge to another raft. She simply scooped up water from the lake, lit the fire and took out a banana.

German psychologist W. koehler(1887-1967) studied how the higher primates - monkeys get out of a situation where a preliminary action, a certain preparation is required to achieve a goal (such tasks are similar to arithmetic tasks in two actions). For example, a banana was placed at some distance from the monkey's cage. A short stick was placed in the monkey's cage. A little further away, so that it was impossible to get a paw, a long stick. However, its length was enough to get the desired banana. Experiments have shown that monkeys quickly find a solution: they use a short stick to get a long one, and then with the help of the latter they get a banana. Moreover, this happens not due to the enumeration of possible options (the so-called trial and error method), but due to the “grasping”, “understanding” of new relationships, the ability to present objects in new combinations to perform new functions. Some of W. Koehler's monkeys even guessed to insert one short stick into another. If something attractive is hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, and boxes are scattered around the room, then the monkey will guess to put them one on top of the other in order to get an attractive thing.

W. Koehler called this phenomenon "insight" - insight, and another German psychologist K. Buhler(1879-1963) - "aha-experience", emphasizing that this happens without reasoning, immediately, suddenly.

By the way, our so smart domestic cats and dogs are not capable of solving such problems. The dog will sit for a long time in front of a piece of meat located at some distance from its cage, but will not “guess” to pull the string to which this meat is tied, and the end of which it can reach with its teeth.

Exploratory behavior is a special form of intellectual behavior in animals. For example, scientists have conducted many studies in which they taught laboratory rats to go through mazes to get food. It turned out that if the animal is hungry, it quickly enough finds the shortest path to the feeder and runs to it. If the hunger is not very strong, then the rat begins to explore the labyrinth in detail. In this case, the rat moves slowly, bypasses and sniffs all the nooks and crannies. Moreover, sometimes she "specially" chooses paths, at the end of which there is obviously nothing "delicious", while she does not go to the same place twice in a row, but chooses a new path. Experiments on monkeys show that they are ready to perform actions that are difficult enough for them, in order to be able to simply look at a toy or at what is happening in the laboratory as a result. At first glance, such behavior seems biologically inappropriate, not directly related to the satisfaction of needs. This, however, is not the case. Such behavior is biologically expedient because, in real life conditions, animals must know what surrounds them, where to find what they need. And for this you need to explore the environment.

The "reasonable" behavior of animals, for all its complexity and diversity, is mainly aimed at solving problems determined by biological expediency, the satisfaction of biologically significant needs. It always has a specific sensory-motor character. In order to establish connections between objects, phenomena (namely, this is an essential feature of intellectual activity), they need these objects, phenomena to be perceived visually and simultaneously. The animal, even the higher ones - monkeys, are not capable of abstraction, generalization, conceptual thinking, understanding of cause-and-effect relationships hidden from direct perception.

This becomes possible only at the next stage of the development of the psyche - consciousness person.

Questions and tasks

1. What forms of animal behavior do these passages describe:

According to the observations of the French biologist Fabre, the sphex wasp, piercing three ganglia 1 of the cricket with a sting, paralyzes it, and then drags it into the mink. The wasp larva feeds on such a paralyzed but still alive cricket. Fabre writes that the accuracy, with

" Ganglion - an accumulation of nerve cells, fibers and their accompanying tissue. The wasp finds the ganglia in such a way that it seems that they are familiar with the anatomy of insects. But if the antennae of a paralyzed cricket are cut off, then the wasp is completely helpless and does not make any attempts to drag it into the hole.

The Austrian ethologist 1 K. Lorenz describes the behavior of tame jackdaws: “One evening, at dusk, I was returning home after swimming in the Danube and, out of habit, hurried to the attic to call the jackdaws and lock them up for the night. Standing on the gutter, I suddenly felt something wet and cold in the pocket of my trousers, where I had stuffed my black swimming trunks in a hurry. I pulled them out - and the next moment I was surrounded by a dense cloud of ferocious gnashing jackdaws, which brought down a hail of terrible blows on my hand that violated the law. On the other hand, tame jackdaws never make a grinding sound or attack you if you are holding one of their chicks, which is still naked and therefore does not look black.

A young rat, raised in a lab and without access to the materials needed to build a burrow, was given these materials before she was due to give birth. The rat failed to make use of them and seemed incapable of taking the necessary care of the young.

2. Watch your pets or the pets of your friends.

What forms of their behavior would you classify as instinctive, which, in your opinion, are at the stage of habit? What, in your opinion, can be characterized as intellectual behavior? Why?

3. Is it possible to transfer the laws of the psyche, revealed in experiments on animals, to humans. If yes, to what extent?

4. What skill development mechanism is described by the American writer Mark Twain in the following statement: “A cat, once sitting on a hot stove, will no longer sit on a hot stove ... And on a cold one too.”

5. What do you think explains the differences in problem solving between animals and children?

The Danish psychologist Buytendijk studied whether animals can make simple inferences. He carried out a series of experiments in which

1 ethologist- Specialist in the study of animal behavior.

2 Lorenz K. Ring of King Solomon. - M., 1970. - S. 155-156. of which the animal had to find a bait hidden under one of the opaque cans placed in a row. In the first experiment, the bait was hidden under the first can, in the second - under the second, in the third - under the third, etc., i.e. the bait was under each time next bank in a row. A large number of experiments were carried out with dogs, cats and monkeys. The results were the same all the time: in the first experiment, the animal found the bait by trial and error, and in subsequent experiments, each time it ran to the jar under which the bait was last time.

Domestic psychologist A.R. Luria conducted similar experiments with young children who had just learned to speak. It turned out that two or three trials were enough for them to complete the task without errors in the future.

6. Explain the following phenomenon.

It is known that the migration of birds has been carefully monitored by scientists for many years. It is recorded that during the First World War, migratory birds changed their paths, which originally passed over the theater of operations - in the flat regions of Northern France. After the war, the birds returned to their former routes again.

At the beginning of the XX century. W. Köhler, studying the behavior of higher primates (chimpanzees), showed that great apes are able to find new ways of behavior not only by enumeration, including old options, or through imitation of other individuals (learning), but also through establishing connections between objects in the field its action and revealing the new meaning of objects as auxiliary means of behavior. We have already mentioned these studies. They are simple and revealing.

A banana is hung high near the ceiling of the room, and the monkey immediately tries to get it. She repeatedly and unsuccessfully jumps and, expressing her dissatisfaction with her lack of success, throws small objects at a banana. There are boxes or a long heavy pole in different places in the room. The monkey, tired, can sit on the box, walk on them. At some point of irritation, she can throw this box from the wall, but when the box accidentally hits a place over which a banana hangs, the monkey freezes, looks at the banana, then at the box, runs to the box and jumps from it for a banana. If the attempt is unsuccessful, the monkey brings the second box, puts the boxes on top of each other and takes out a banana from them. The next time in a similar situation, the monkey, after several unsuccessful jumps for a banana, runs to the boxes and brings them to the place where the banana hangs. Similar behavior with a pole. At first, the pole is raised to knock down the banana, but it is heavy and awkward. And when the pole, placed vertically, is next to the banana, then the monkey, after a short stop in its activity, quickly climbs up the pole, grabs the bait (banana) from it and, throwing the pole, jumps off with prey.

W. Köhler called this behavior "solving a behavioral problem in a roundabout way", and the ability of monkeys to solve problems in this way - "animal intelligence". This study allowed a number of scientists to formulate a general idea of ​​the levels of complexity of the behavior of living beings in the form of a scheme, which we have already discussed in previous chapters. According to them, all living beings have an innate unchanging behavior. A number of more complex species of living beings have the ability to learn and develop new skills (skills), and there are species that are on the evolutionary ladder next to humans, they have the rudiments of intelligence (thinking). It turned out to be a very beautiful scheme of the evolution of behavior, but it turned out that learning, especially in the sphere of orientation, is observed in many species. Moreover, it turned out that animals (mammals) untrained by their mothers in childhood grow up poorly adapted to independent life, i.e. their training is mandatory. The so-called intellectual behavior(the ability to solve problems on the basis of establishing connections between objects in the field of action) turned out to be not the privilege of only great apes, but widespread among different animal species. The limitation was due to the fact that the intelligence of animals turned out to be species-specific, which in general is a manifestation of the ecological principle of reflection. Each species is good at solving problems from its ecology.

For example, a hermit crab is actively protected from enemies by sea anemones with poisonous tentacles. The sea otter, in order to break the shell, takes a stone from the bottom, puts it on his chest and breaks the shell against it (often with another stone). Some birds, in order to break a bone, throw it from a height onto stones. A dog, like a monkey, is able to drag the box under the bait and get it from the box in a jump. Birds, in order to master the bait suspended on a string, pull it up with their beak and clamp it with their paws on the perch. The ways of catching fish by dolphins, which testify to their intelligence, are described. One dolphin walks in circles around the fish in shallow water and beats the water with its tail, raising silt from the bottom. Trying to get out of the muddy water, the fish jump out of the muddy circle, and the dolphins, located in a circle, catch them in the air. In the open sea, dolphins knock fish into a tight school and dive into it in turn. Cases of cooperation between dolphins and fishermen are also described, when dolphins give signals to people that there is a fish here, and then pick up the one that did not get into the net.

The ingenuity of animals is also manifested in relations with other individuals of the pack. Cases are described of how a monkey with a low ranking place in a flock, in order to gain access to food, arranges a quarrel with a neighboring flock of monkeys during feeding, and when its own flock rushes to protect it, this monkey runs to the feed. Very often, monkeys, violating the established order of behavior in the flock, do it not openly, but in such a way that the blame for violating the order falls on other individuals.

These research results gave grounds to assert that any behavior is a solution to the problem:

• genetically predetermined behavior it is a solution found in evolution and executed by natural means;
• skill- this is a solution found in the past (in ontogeny) in non-standard conditions and applied at the moment;
• intellectual behavior is the solution of the problem "here and now", often with the use of auxiliary means (objects).

Any behavior begins with the study of the environment and the selection of objects that have biological meaning, and landmark objects leading to the success of behavior. In simple standard situations, this exploratory part of the behavior can be reduced, and the response activity is reduced to a set of fixed behavioral responses. But when habitual circumstances change, living beings begin to search for an adequate answer and guidelines that help to carry out a new way of activity. In artificial situations created for an animal by people, animals often cannot distinguish the connection between objects and find a solution to the problem by trying different methods and fixing successful ones. In situations similar to the ecological conditions of life of a given species of animals, they single out the objective connections of objects, predict changes in the environment, and find solutions that correspond to the objective connections of objects in the field of action.

instincts are called innate acts of behavior that arise in connection with complex (complex) stimuli emanating from both the external and internal environment. They consist of a successive series of interrelated actions and are carried out as chain unconditioned reflexes, in which the effector part of one reflex serves as a trigger mechanism for turning on the next reflex in the given chain. instincts animals are varied. They are always associated with the important biological needs of the animal. Examples of them are: sexual instinct (for example, mating in birds, fighting for a female), caring for offspring (nursing larvae in ants, building nests, incubating eggs and feeding chicks in birds), herd instincts that encourage animals to unite in flocks, herds, etc.

Skills are complex conditioned reflexes that ensure the differentiated adaptation of animals to changing environmental conditions and, in connection with this, better satisfaction of their needs. In contrast to instincts, habits are formed and fixed in the course of the individual life of the animal; they are based on stable temporal connections between certain stimuli and the response actions of the animal. Their formation becomes possible due to the lability of the nervous system of animals, its ability to form a wide variety of connections when relying not only on innate unconditioned reflexes, but also on other conditioned reflexes that have already formed. Skills are formed through a long exercise, consisting of a series of repeated performance of certain actions. In the process of such an exercise, new temporary connections are formed, which are gradually differentiated and refined. Thanks to skills, the behavior of the animal becomes flexible and better adapted to changing environmental conditions. High development skills reach animals endowed with the cerebral hemispheres. In these animals, the skills become more complex and diverse, which is associated with further improvement of the reflective function of the nervous system.

Intelligent actions are called those in which the animal, on the basis of reflecting the connections and relations existing between objects, solves problems that are new to him, not previously encountered in his experience. Intelligence is manifested by an animal when, in its actions, it encounters unusual difficulties, for which instincts and skills are insufficient to overcome. In these cases, the intelligence of the animal manifests itself in the invention of a new mode of action that has not been used by the animal before. Intellectual actions are the highest form of animal adaptation to the environment. They are based on complex conditioned reflex connections characteristic of the rational activity of animals. The intellectual behavior of animals is characterized by the following features :

1. Animals show the ability to act intellectually when there are obstacles on the way to achieving the goal. If you can master food in the usual way, with the help of unconditioned reflexes and habits developed over a lifetime, intellectual actions do not occur.
2. Intellectual actions arise to solve a new problem and consist in the invention of a new mode of action.
3. These actions do not have a template character, they are individualized: some animals solve the problem in one way, others in another way.
4. Monkeys use various objects (poles, sticks, etc.) as tools.
5. The intellectual actions of animals are of a primitive nature and do not follow from knowledge of the objective laws of nature. The intellectual actions of even higher apes, by their nature, do not go beyond the range of tasks put forward by the natural conditions of their life.
6. In animals, intellectual actions do not occupy a dominant position in their behavior. Instincts and skills remain the main forms of adaptation to the environment. Even in higher animals, intellectual actions appear from time to time: they arise in them, but do not acquire a fundamental meaning and are not fixed in their experience.

7. Invented ways of doing things are not passed on from one animal to another and are thus not the product of species experience. They remain the property of only the individual animal that discovers them.

Perm Institute of Humanities and Technology

Faculty of Humanities

TEST

in the discipline "Zoopsychology"

"Intellectual Behavior of Animals"

Perm, 2007

INTRODUCTION

Darwin believed that there is an evolutionary continuity in the development of the mental abilities of animals; he opposed the widely held belief that animals are mere automatons and, compared to humans, are at a much lower level of mental development. In his book The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin argued that "animals have a certain capacity for rational activity" and that "the difference between the mind of man and the mind of higher animals, however great, is, of course, a difference in degree , not in quality. In the publications of Darwin's student George Romanes, the intelligence of animals was even exaggerated; his book The Mind of Animals (1882) was the first attempt at a scientific analysis of the intellectual activity of an animal.

Romanes defined intelligence as the ability to "adjust" one's behavior to the changing conditions of life. His uncritical appraisal of the abilities of animals provoked protest from Morgan and subsequent behaviorists, who tried to reduce the intelligence of animals only to specific abilities. They criticized the "anecdotal" approach to this problem and developed strict criteria on the basis of which it was possible to speak about the mental abilities of animals. Lloyd Morgan inspired Edward Thorndike to explore learning by trial and error, and thus he unwittingly became the founder of the behavioral trend in animal psychology. In his book An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1894), Morgan suggested that higher-order abilities develop on the basis of more primitive ones; he proposed a psychological scale of psychic abilities.

Although this idea of ​​an evolutionary scale of abilities in the form of a certain ladder had a noticeable influence on the development of animal psychology, this point of view is no longer acceptable at present. When studying the structure of the brain and the abilities of animals of different species, it became quite obvious that animals of different species in different ecological conditions exhibit a huge variety of types of intellectual activity. This makes it very difficult to define the concept of intelligence, but emphasizes the importance of studying it in animals from a functional point of view, as well as studying the mechanisms that provide it.

MAIN PART

There are two main ways to assess the intelligence of animals. One is to evaluate behavior and the other is to study the brain. In the past, both of these approaches were based on the fact that there is a linear sequence in development from lower, non-intellectual animals, characterized by a relatively simple brain, to higher, intelligent animals, whose brains have a complex structure. Surveying the entire animal kingdom as a whole, we would seem to find confirmation of this impression, but when we become more familiar with these or those special cases, we find many obvious deviations here. And these are not exceptions to the general rule, but a consequence of the fact that evolution was not linear, but gave many branches, each of which adapts to its own set of external conditions. Thus, animals can be quite complex in some respects and fairly simple in others. At the same time, animals of different species can reach the same degree of complexity, being on different branches of the evolutionary tree.

When comparing the brains of animals of different species, one would expect that there is a certain relationship between the relative size of a particular structure and the degree of complexity of the behavior that is regulated by this structure. The more an animal uses a certain feature of its behavior in the process of adapting 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 structures associated with various sensory processes. It is much more difficult to understand when one has to consider areas of the brain with a more general functional purpose, since they can be enlarged due to the fact that different types of animals were subjected to different selection pressures.

Ever since Binet in 1905. developed tests to determine the intellectual level of a person, significant progress has been made in their improvement and improvement. This progress was due, first of all, to the fact that it became possible to evaluate various tests, comparing the results of these tests with the subsequent success of the subjects in the learning process. Modern intelligence quotient tests are much more accurate in predicting how far a given person will advance in the field of intellectual achievement. However, many difficulties remain, especially when trying to compare the general intelligence of people with different levels of culture. Assessing the intelligence of animals is much more difficult, because there is no way to test the validity of a particular test, and because animals of different species vary greatly in their ability to perform a particular activity.

Until recently, the assessment of the intelligence of animals was mainly based on the study of those abilities that are usually considered an indicator of human intelligence. The 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 seen, pigeons seem to have an amazing ability to form concepts such as water, wood, and man. Should we take this as a sign of great intelligence? Thinking about this, we came to the conclusion that the ability of man in this respect is far superior to that of any animal, even a well-trained one.

To compare the intelligence of animals belonging to different species, it is difficult to think of a test that would not be biased in one way or another. Many of the earlier tests to determine an animal's ability to solve problems were unreliable. Sometimes the same test carried out on animals of the same species, depending on the type of equipment used, gave completely different results.

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 items one that matches the sample. Primates quickly learn to solve this kind of problem, and pigeons require much more attempts. Harry Harlow developed a test to measure an animal's ability to follow rules and draw correct conclusions. Instead of testing the monkeys for their ability to solve a single task of simple visual discrimination, Harlow gave them a series of tests in succession in which the task had to follow the same rule. Although different objects were used in each task, the decision rule was the same: the food reward in each case (within a given task) is always under the same object, regardless of what position it occupies. If, as a sequence of such tasks of the same type is presented, the animal solves them better and better, then it is said that it has formed a learning set.

When examining the ability of animals to learn that the general decision rule is the same for a whole set of problems and that a single principle must be followed to obtain the correct solution, different types of problems can be used. Critics of this technique have noted that the ability of animals of various species to form a learning set is highly dependent on how the tests are carried out. However, even with the opinion of these critics, it seems to be recognized that animals of different species do differ in their ability to form a learning attitude. When different animal species were ranked according to the rate of improvement in their responses when presented with the same type of tasks in sequence, their rank could be guessed based on an index of brain development. With the help of this index, the number of brain nerve cells that are redundant in relation to those that are necessary for the regulation of somatic functions is estimated. Thus, it seems that tests similar to those for human intelligence can be developed to assess the intelligence of animals, and these tests make it possible to distinguish between the mental abilities of animals of different species.

The notion that such tests represent a true measure of intelligence is supported by evidence that the quality of performance on these tests correlates with brain size. Similar results were obtained when using other types of tests. For example, it was shown that rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees, in contrast to cats, improve their performance much faster when solving a series of object discrimination tasks if they had prior experience in solving reverse problems, i.e. tasks in which periodically the choice of the subject being reinforced was changed. These two types of tasks 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 dissimilarity problems, in which the animal must choose an unpaired object from a group of objects. Critics of these experiments argue that they are inevitably carried out in such a way that it is easy for animals of one species to perform them, and difficult for animals of another species. But even if the differences described are taken seriously, they reflect only one aspect of intellectual activity, and it is not surprising that macaques and great apes perform well on tests designed to determine human IQ, since they are all primates.

A Few Facts about Intelligent Animal Behavior

1. The experiment belongs to our Soviet physiologist - Professor of the Department of Nervous Activity of the University L. V. Krushinsky and is called an experiment with an extrapolation reflex. In this case, we are also talking about the perception of relationships, but not space, but the perception of relationships in time. The apparatus on which this experiment is demonstrated consists of two opaque tubes. In one of them, before the eyes of the animal, a bait is introduced on a rope - a piece of meat or a pack of grains for poultry. This bait moves in a closed tube. The animal sees the bait enter the pipe, sees the bait exit into a free hole and hides again in the second pipe. How does the animal behave in this case? Experiments have shown that animals of different levels of development react differently. Those animals that are at a lower stage of development (for example, chickens) react as follows: they rush to the bait passing through the gap and try to grab it, despite the fact that it has passed by, in other words, they react only to a direct impression.

Unlike them, animals that stand at a higher level give a completely different reaction: they look at the bait passing through the gap, then run to the end of the pipe and wait for the bait to appear at the open end.

Birds of prey do this; so always does a cat and a dog.

This means that all these animals do not react to a direct impression, but extrapolate, that is, they take into account where the given object will appear if it moves. They anticipate the movement of an object, and this anticipatory behavior is a feature of highly developed animals. This means that, along with the reaction to an immediate impression, higher vertebrates have a certain type of anticipatory behavior, that is, a reaction taking into account the relationship between where the object is at the moment and where it will be in the future.

This behavior is already a type of intelligent behavior, which differs sharply from both instinctive and ordinary, more elementary forms of individually variable behavior.

2. Workaround technique.

It is as follows.

The animal was placed in a box, in which one wall consisted of a lattice. The bait is located in front of the grate. The bait is located so that the animal cannot directly reach it.

How do animals on the steps of the evolutionary ladder behave in this case?

The chicken, placed in the fence just described, perceives the grains and simply beats against the net, cannot in any way be distracted from the direct image of the bait; a cow in similar conditions stands rather sluggishly, pokes her muzzle into the partition and makes no attempt to bypass the fence. But the dog behaves completely differently; she tries several times to get the bait directly, then does the exact opposite - she runs from the bait, goes around the fence and takes the bait. Of course so does the monkey.

CONCLUSION

Thus, if at the first stages of the phylogenetic ladder behavior is of an elementary, immediate nature, if it is determined by the direct perception of an individual property, signal (shine for a mosquito, vibration for a spider) or a complex reflection of a directly perceived object (when an animal, for example, in the experience of delayed reactions, runs to the box in which the bait is hidden), then here the behavior of the animal takes on a complex character and begins to consist of a cycle of successive mutually subordinate links. Some authors rightly say that the action here is divided into three phases: direct trials and orientation in the environment, in this first phase an orienting basis for future action is created and a general scheme of those paths that can achieve the goal is formed; executive operation, during which the animal performs the elaborated scheme of action, and therefore the third phase, during which the animal compares the achieved effect with the desired intention, and either ends the action (if it is consistent with the original intention) or continues it (if such consistency does not occur ).

Such a complex nature of action, which has a preliminary orienting basis and breaks down into a series of successive mutually subordinate operations, can be called the structure of intellectual behavior.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Goodall D. Chimpanzees in Nature: Behavior. M.: Mir, 1982.

Zorina Z.A., Poletaeva I.I. Zoopsychology. Elementary Animal Thinking: Textbook M.: Aspect Press, 2001.

Reznikova Zh.I. Intelligence and language: Animals and man in the mirror of experiments. Part 1. M.: Nauka, 2000.

Comparative psychology and zoopsychology: Reader. St. Petersburg: Peter, 2001.

Filippova G.G. Zoopsychology and comparative psychology. M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2004.

In vertebrates at the top of the evolutionary ladder, in particular in primates, new forms of individually variable behavior arise, which can rightfully be designated as "intellectual" behavior.

The formation of skills is the result of a more or less prolonged repetition of new movements and actions. But animals may face such tasks that require solution not by exercise, but by correct reflection of the emerging situation that does not occur in his practice. A prerequisite for intellectual forms of behavior is perception, that is, the reflection of whole complex forms of complex situations in the environment, as well as the reflection of complex relationships between individual objects. An example of such behavior is the behavior of animals in the experiment of L.V. Krushinsky. The apparatus on which the experiment was demonstrated consists of two opaque pipes. In one of them, before the eyes of the animal, a bait is introduced on a string - a piece of meat or a pack of grain for a bird, this bait moves in a closed pipe. The animal sees the bait enter the pipe, sees the bait exit into a free hole and hides again in the second pipe. Experiments have shown that animals of different levels of development do not react in the same way. Those animals that are at a lower stage of development (for example, chickens) react like this: they rush to the bait passing through the gap and try to grab it, despite the fact that it has passed by, in other words, they react only to a direct impression.

Unlike them, animals that are at a higher level of development give a completely different reaction: they look at the bait passing through the gap, then run to the end of the pipe and wait for the bait to appear at this open end.

Birds of prey do this with birds: this is what a cat or dog always does.

This means that all these animals do not react to a direct impression, but extrapolate, that is, they take into account where the given object will appear if it moves. In higher vertebrates, along with the reaction to an immediate impression, there is a certain type of anticipatory behavior, that is, a reaction taking into account the relationship between where the object is at the moment and where it will be in the future.

This behavior is already a type of intelligent behavior, which differs sharply from both instinctive and ordinary, more elementary forms of individual changeable behavior.

A special place among higher animals is assigned to primates (great apes). Primates, unlike most other mammals, are attracted to manipulation not only with food objects, but also with all kinds of objects (“disinterested” curiosity, “exploratory impulse” according to Pavlov).

Let us turn to several classical experiments in which the intellectual behavior of animals was studied. These experiments were carried out by Köhler, and became known as elementary experiments with the use of tools. The use of tools is always a typical intellectual action.

The experiment was set up as follows.

The first simple experiment: a monkey in a cage, the front wall is a lattice. Outside the cage there is a bait that the monkey cannot reach with his hand; a stick lies on the side, which is located closer than the bait. Can a monkey use a stick to get bait? The experiments showed the following: at first the monkey tried in every possible way to get the bait with his hand - there is no strategy yet, there are direct attempts to get the bait; then, when these attempts are in vain, it stops and the next stage begins: the monkey looks around the situation, takes a stick, pulls it towards him and takes out a bait with a stick.

The second experiment is more complex. The bait is further away. On one side lies a short stick, which you can’t get the bait in any way, and on the other side, a little further - a long stick, which is suitable for getting the bait. The researcher poses the question: can a monkey first take a short stick, and then with the help of a short stick get a long one and with the help of a long stick get the bait? It turns out that for a monkey this task is much more difficult, but still accessible. The monkey makes direct attempts to get the bait for a very long time, becomes exhausted, then looks around the field, and, as Köhler describes, takes the first stick, and with its help he takes out the second, and with the second stick - the bait. Obviously, at this moment, says Köhler, the monkey has a scheme of future action, a decision scheme and a general strategy of action. Köhler even says that the monkey experiences something similar to what we experience when we say "aha, we understand," and calls this act "aha - we will survive."

The third experiment is even more difficult. It is built in the same way as the second experiment, with the only difference that the stick is in different fields of view. When a monkey looks at one stick, he does not see the second; when he looks at the second, he does not see the first. In this case, the task for the monkey turns out to be almost unsolvable. It is necessary, says Köhler, that both sticks and the bait be in the same field of view, so that their relationship can be visually perceived. Only under these conditions, if the monkey visually perceives the relationship of all three objects, can a visual hypothesis of the solution appear in it and an appropriate strategy arises.

In the experiments of I.P. Pavlov, the chimpanzee Rafael learned to extinguish fire with water, which prevents him from reaching the bait. When the water tank was installed on another raft, Rafael, in order to put out the fire, rushed along the shaky walkways to the neighboring raft. The animal transferred the learned mode of action (skill) to a new situation. Of course, such an action is rendered inappropriate (there is water around the raft!). But meanwhile it is biologically justified. Moving along the rickety walkways of a monkey does not constitute excessive physical effort, and therefore the situation given in the experiment did not become a problematic situation for the chimpanzee, which she would have to solve intellectually. Instincts and habits, as a more stereotyped way of reacting, protect the animal organism from overexertion. Only in the case of a series of failures does the animal react in the highest level way - by intellectual problem solving.

What, then, must be taken into account in experiments in order to scientifically approach the intellectual behavior of animals? First of all, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that any form of adaptation of an animal to the environment is a certain vigorous activity, proceeding, however, according to reflex laws. The animal cannot solve something earlier in the mind in order to later implement it in activity, it will try to solve problems in the process of actively adapting to the environment.

The second proposition consists in recognizing that the structure of this active activity is not the same at different stages of evolution and that only from the point of view of evolution can one approach the formation of intellectual forms of behavior in higher animals. The intellectual behavior of the monkey is explained tentatively by research activity, during which he singles out, compares the necessary features. If these signs are appropriate, the action is successful and it ends, and if they are not appropriate, the action continues.

It is very difficult to explain how an animal comes to an intellectual solution of a problem, and this process is interpreted by different researchers in different ways. Some consider it possible to bring these forms of monkey behavior closer to the human intellect and consider them as a manifestation of creative insight. The Austrian psychologist K. Buhler believes that the use of tools by monkeys should be considered as a result of the transfer of previous experience (monkeys living on trees had to attract fruits by branches). From the point of view of modern researchers, the basis of intellectual behavior is the reflection of complex relationships between individual objects. Animals are able to grasp the relationship between objects and anticipate the outcome of a given situation. IP Pavlov, who made observations on the behavior of monkeys, called the intellectual behavior of monkeys "manual thinking."

So, intellectual behavior, which is characteristic of higher mammals and reaches a particularly high development in anthropoid apes, represents that upper limit of the development of the psyche, beyond which the history of the development of the psyche of a completely different, new type, characteristic only of man, begins - the history of the development of human consciousness. The prehistory of human consciousness is, as we have seen, a long and complex process of development of the psyche of animals. If we look at this path with a single glance, then its main stages and the laws that govern it stand out clearly. The development of the psyche of animals occurs in the process of their biological evolution and is subject to the general laws of this process. Each new stage of mental development is basically caused by the transition to new external conditions for the existence of animals and a new step in the complication of their physical organization.