During the past few decades, a mounting body of evidence has shown that animals possess a number of cognitive traits once thought to be uniquely human. Bees “talk” through complex dances and sounds [Note: in Problems in General Linguistics, Benveniste explained that the so-called languages of bees is not a language but a signal code.]; birds act as “social tutors,” teaching song repertoires to their young; monkeys use tools and can sort abstract symbols into categories. Yet the more scientists learn about the similarities between human and animal thought, the greater the need to explain the dramatic divide. Are the human faculties associated with language simply an advanced version of capacities that are found in animals, or do they represent something that is qualitatively new? (…)

Hauser describes animals as having “laser-beam” intelligence, in which each cognitive capacity is locked into a specific function. Humans, by contrast, have “floodlight” intelligence, he says: they can use a single system of thought in multiple ways and can translate information from one context to another. “Animals,” he elaborates, “live in a world in which the systems don’t talk to each other.”

Take tool use, for example. In 1960, when Jane Goodall discovered a chimpanzee using a grass stalk to catch termites, a long-held theory about human uniqueness fell apart. “But the significance of tool use doesn’t lie in the fact of tools,” Hauser explains, “but rather in how they’re conceived and used.” Animal tools consist of only one material and have only one functional part, while human tools have evolved over time to be made of various materials and have multiple functions. A knife can be used to cut food, open a box, or stab an intruder. Forty years of research, he reports, have not revealed any evidence that animals can use one tool for multiple purposes.

Hauser summarizes the distinguishing characteristics of human thought under four broad capacities. These include: the ability to combine and recombine different types of knowledge and information in order to gain new understanding; the ability to apply the solution for one problem to a new and different situation; the ability to create and easily understand symbolic representation of computation and sensory input; and the ability to detach modes of thought from raw sensory and perceptual input.

{ Harvard Magazine | Continue reading }

READ MORE >> science, animals | November 21st, 2008