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Psychology, Comparative

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"This book, initiated by Willard Caldwell, represents the combined efforts of a group of psychologists working in the field of animal study to present the data and the interpretations of those data in this fascinating area. The contributors were selected because they are themselves responsible for much of the research material brought together in the text. Each is an independent scholar in his own area and is thus best able to interpret the outcomes of experimental and theoretical studies in that area. The authors have tried to incorporate recent findings without neglecting the standard, time-tested material to be expected in a book that proposes to survey the entire field. The following features of the text illustrate this effort: a new look at the old problem of innate behavior; the effects of early experience on the development of sensory and perceptual abilities; the added insight on neural mechanisms resulting from the application of recently developed techniques; new research trends in motivation; fresh evaluations of findings in the areas of social and abnormal behavior; the role of genetics in the analysis of behavior; an account of the contributions of European ethologists to comparative psychology; the study of many different species; and the inclusion of divergent theoretical points of view rather than the particular biases of the contributors and editors. The book is designed to be more than a mere compilation of factual materials. Experimental findings are essential, but of equal, or greater, interest are the principles drawn from these findings. The references listed at the end of each chapter will direct the interested student to the original sources for a more detailed statement of the techniques and data on which the textual material is founded"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychology, Comparative.

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"My central object in this work is to discuss the relation of the psychology of man to that of the higher animals, since such a discussion forms in my opinion the best introduction to Comparative Psychology. A secondary object, subordinate indeed, yet forming an integral part of my plan, is to consider the place of consciousness in nature, the relation of psychical evolution to physical and biological evolution, and the light which comparative psychology throws on certain philosophical problems. It was my original intention to compare my own results with those which have been reached by previous observers and thinkers in this field of investigation and inquiry. But I found that, in the first place, this would largely increase the bulk of the book; that, in the second place, it would introduce a controversial tone, which I was desirous of avoiding; and that it would in other ways interfere with what appeared the most convenient mode of developing my subject. I therefore abandoned my original intention, and adopted a more direct method of exposition and discussion. It is, however, all the more incumbent on me to acknowledge my indebtedness to my predecessors and contemporaries. Those whose acquaintance with the subject is most wide and extensive, will best be able to judge how far what I have written is a mere restatement of what has already been written, and how far, if at all, I have done something towards advancing the boundaries of our knowledge or rendering the knowledge that we possess clearer and more exact. Others will perhaps do well to regard me as a secretary who has, I trust, with due diligence thrown into convenient form the data with which he has been supplied"--

Psychology, Comparative.

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Psychology, Comparative.

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"The form of the present work needs a preliminary word of explanation. Its subject is 'Mind in Evolution, ' but no one will expect that such a subject should be treated with any pretence of adequacy within a single volume or by a single writer. The contribution offered in the following pages is of a double character. There is, first, an attempt to sketch in outline what seem to the writer to be the main phases of mental development. There is, secondly, an attempt to fill in this outline so far as the lower phases are concerned. To put the same distinction in different words, a hypothesis is propounded as to the general trend of mental evolution, and an attempt is made to test this hypothesis so far as animal intelligence and the generic distinction between animal and human intelligence are concerned. For the rest, that is to say in all that relates to the higher development of the human mind in society, the outline is left to be filled in upon a future occasion. The whole subject naturally falls into the two main divisions of animal and human evolution, and the mass of matter to be dealt with is so great that it is convenient to keep the two parts separate. At the same time evolution is a single continuous process the different phases of which are only seen in their true significance when treated as parts of the whole to which they belong. This is my excuse for combining a general design with a partial execution. Even as to that portion of the hypothesis which I have described as being tested in the present work I cannot pretend that the test is in any sense final. The hypothesis, though it appears to me to stand the test thus far, remains a hypothesis. The nature and limits of animal intelligence in its higher forms are matters of keen controversy, and will long remain so. In a science so little advanced as Comparative Psychology the justification for publishing any opinions or arguments must lie not in any pretence to finality, but in the hope of suggesting further investigation. In the years that have elapsed since the first edition was published, the subject of Comparative Psychology has undergone a great change. The observations of H.S. Jennings have shown me that something of the nature of mind is to be carried further down in the organic world than I supposed. His results, together, with other work in general psychology, have led me, however, to extend rather than to narrow the view taken in the first edition, and even to raise the question whether mind (in the infinitely varied forms of its activity from the groping of unconscious effort to the full clearness of conscious purpose) may not be the essential driving force in all evolutionary change".

Evolution (Biology) --- Psychology, Comparative.