شناخت حیوانات در طبیعت: همگرایی روانشناسی و زیست‌شناسی در آزمایشگاه و میدان

In this book, the editors bring together results from studies on all kinds of animals to show how thinking on many behaviors as truly cognitive processes can help us to understand the biology involved. Taking ideas and observations from the while range of research into animal behavior leads to unexpected and stimulating ideas. A space is created where the work of field ecologists, evolutionary ecologists and experimental psychologists can interact and contribute to a greater understanding of complex animal behavior, and to the development of a new and coherent field of study. The idea that animals behave in ways that are mere robotic responses to stimuli (e.g. sign stimuli or conditioned stimuli) or just the result of a specific set of conditioning programs can no longer be sustained. Field studies regularly record complex behaviors where animals integrate the results of past experience with current situations and the survival and reproductive challenges of the moment. For example, food storage behavior requires the integration of remembered maps of the environment, the whereabouts of new and stored food sources and the current needs of nutrition and survival.In this book, the editors bring together results from studies on all kinds of animals to show how thinking on many behaviors as truly cognitive processes can help us to understand the biology involved. Taking ideas and observations from the wide range of research into animal behavior leads to unexpected and stimulating ideas.A space is created where the work of field ecologists, evolutionary ecologists, and experimental psychologists can interact and contribute to a greater understanding of complex animal behavior, and to the development of a new and coherent field of study. "The last 20-30 years have seen two 'scientific revolutions' in the study of animal behavior: the cognitive revolution that originated in psychology, and the Darwinian, behavioral ecology revolution that originated in biology."