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The logic of the stimulus

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Abstract

This paper examines the contribution of stimulus processing to animal logics. In the classic functionalist S-O-R view of learning (and cognition), stimuli provide the raw material to which the organism applies its cognitive processes–its logic, which may be taxon-specific. Stimuli may contribute to the logic of the organism's response, and may do so in taxon-specific ways. Firstly, any non-trivial stimulus has an internal organization that may constrain or bias the way that the organism addresses it; since stimuli can only be defined relative to the organism's perceptual apparatus, and this apparatus is taxon-specific, such constraints or biases will often be taxon-specific. Secondly, the representation of a stimulus that the perceptual system builds, and the analysis it makes of this representation, may provide a model for the synthesis and analysis done at a more cognitive level. Such a model is plausible for evolutionary reasons: perceptual analysis was probably perfected before cognitive analysis in the evolutionary history of the vertebrates. Like stimulus-driven analysis, such perceptually modelled cognition may be taxon-specific because of the taxon-specificity of the perceptual apparatus. However, it may also be the case that different taxa are able to free themselves from the stimulus logic, and therefore apply a more abstract logic, to different extents. This thesis is defended with reference to two examples of cases where animals' cognitive logic seems to be isomorphic with perceptual logic, specifically in the case of pigeons' attention to global and local information in visual stimuli, and dogs' failure to comprehend means-end relationships in string-pulling tasks.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is based on one delivered at the symposium on animal logics held at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria, in November 2004. The ideas presented here owe much to discussion with colleagues, notably Andy Wills, Alan Slater and Lucia Jacobs. Preparation of the manuscript was supported by European Communities Framework 6 (NEST) project 516542, “From Associations to Rules”, and US National Institute of Mental Health grant MH068426. Kazuhiro Goto is now at Keio University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Washington Singer Laboratories, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, United Kingdom

    Stephen E. G. Lea, Britta Osthaus & Catriona M. E. Ryan

  2. School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Kazuhiro Goto

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  1. Stephen E. G. Lea
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  2. Kazuhiro Goto
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Correspondence to Stephen E. G. Lea.

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This contribution is part of the special issue “Animal Logics” (Watanabe and Huber 2006).

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Lea, S., Goto, K., Osthaus, B. et al. The logic of the stimulus. Anim Cogn 9, 247–256 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-006-0038-3

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