Animal intelligence: the theories of Thorndike and Köhler

The intelligence It is one of the great concepts studied by psychology and, furthermore, one of the most difficult to explain. Being the intellect a defining capacity of the human being, it's hard to trace its evolutionary roots and, therefore, to come to understand how their biological bases originated in our species. However, it is not true that the intellectual capacity that we have came out of nowhere, and this is how it manifests also in the study of other species with which we have common ancestors: the so-called intelligence research animal.

The ability to mentally create simple scenes in which you can solve problems virtually, also called the ability to insightIt is also typical of some animals of recent evolution. The foundations of intelligent behavior can therefore be found in other species contemporary to our own. With regard to the study of animal intelligence, two of the leading psychologists are Wolfgang Köhler, associated with the psychology of Gestalt, Y Edward thorndike, behavioral psychologist.

Animal intelligence, polyhedral concept

In the first place we must clarify the object of study of both Kölher and Thorndike. The first of them wants to check to what extent there are intelligent behaviors in animals, especially in animals. anthropoids, but he specifies that his level of intelligence is behind that of the human being in terms of ability to insight. The second of them, Thorndike, highlights the object of his study as a process described in terms of laws of association. Therefore, while Köhler looks at the qualitative leaps that occur in the behavior of the animal when solving a problem (explained by the fact that get “out of the blue” to the resolution of a problem thanks to the power of insight), Thorndike explains problem solving in animals as a cumulative process of repetitions.

Referring to Thorndike, we highlight his special interest in the knowledge of the sensory faculties, phenotypes, reactions and representational links established by experience when studying intelligence animal. According to his criteria, the word "association" can encompass a multitude of different processes that manifest themselves in multiple contexts. In this way, For Thorndike, the association not only does not mark the limits of rational behavior, but it is the substratum of this being the mechanism by which certain animals adapt to the environment in the best way possible. For this reason he rejects the negative connotations of a word linked to laboratory scope.

Kölher, however, considers that there is no associationist psychologist who, in his observations impartial do not distinguish and contrast unintelligent behaviors on the one hand and unintelligent smart on the other. This is why when Thorndike, after investigating him with cats and chickens, mentions that “nothing in his behavior seems intelligent ”Kölher considers that whoever formulates the results in these terms should be more flexible in its definition of animal intelligence.

The method

For Thorndike's object of study, that is, to interpret the ways of acting of animals, he built a study method based on the mediation of time progress curves. These curves of the progress in the formation of the "correct" associations, calculated from the records of the times of the animal in the successive tests, are absolute facts. He considers them good representations of the progress in the formation of the association because it accounts for two essential factors: the disappearance of all activity except the one that leads to the success and the realization of the latter activity in a precise and voluntary way.

The place

The medium for this type of analysis was the laboratory, since it allowed to isolate variables as much as possible. As for the animals that are the object of his study, he used mainly cats, but also chickens and dogs, to determine the ability and the time it took for these animals to develop. build a set of actions effective enough to achieve their goals, that is, to achieve the food or what the researcher showed them through the bars of box.

Despite the occasional use of chickens and dogs as experimental subjects to study animal intelligence, Kölher focuses on anthropoids. For these, he builds a complicated geometry of movements so that the animals reach their goal, which is located in such a way that it was visually identified by the anthropoids. In addition, he considers of the utmost importance the fact that the behaviors of these animals must be continuously observed, for which he performs a good observation-based analysis. Kölher considers that only by causing insecurity and perplexity in chimpanzees through slight modifications of the problem can be studied the constant adaptation to circumstances that manifests itself through action smart.

Discussion on animal intelligence

Thorndike concluded that the starting point for association is the set of instinctive activities activated in the moment in which the animal feels uncomfortable in the cage, either because of the confinement or because of a desire to food. In this way one of the movements present in the varied behavioral repertoire of the animal would be selected for success. Then the animal associates certain impulses that have led to success with the feeling of confinement, and these "useful" impulses are strengthened through partnership.

Kölher, in addition to his idea of ​​the importance of geometric conditions, took into account that chance can lead animals to privileged and unequal positions since sometimes it can happen that a series of coincidences lead the animal directly towards the goal, masking the whole process as a sample of animal intelligence. This leads you to the conclusion that the more complex the work to be done, the lower the probability of a random solution. He also believes that the experiment becomes more difficult when one part of the problem, if possible the most important, it is not visible from the starting point, but only known by the experience. This is why he considers the complexity of the problem important and consequently the discrimination between behaviors determined by chance and intelligent behaviors.

The critics

Kölher had some objections to Thorndike's experiments. The main one was his criticism towards Thorndike's idea that in animals no idea emanates from the perception from which to work mentally in solving a problem (as it does in the human being), but simply limited themselves to establishing connections between experiences. Köler, however, speaks of the insight capacity of many animals, the property of being able to reach suddenly to the solution of a problem through the mental representation of what happens in the environment.

In turn, Thorndike denied that in the animal there is an awareness of the ideas or impulses available, and therefore so much so that he also denied the possibility that the animal association is identical to the psychology association human. From this position, denied the existence of animal intelligence.

Kölher, however, affirms that intelligent behaviors do exist, at least in anthropoids, even though these are inferior to that of human beings. East lower grade of insight of nonhuman animals is fundamentally explained by the lack of the ability to create language and the limitation in the repertoire of possible ideas, which remain linked to the concrete and the environment righ now.