ARE ANIMALS REALLY INTELLIGENT?

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 96, 20 October 1934, Page 25

ARE ANIMALS REALLY INTELLIGENT?

Dee and Dum, two remarkable little racoons,, were tho twin stars of a film which received round after round of applause at a joint meeting of tho psy-.. chology and zoology sections of the British Association, says a London paper. ' .

International experts werd discussing tho fascinating question of the behaviour of animals, and there- was one of the biggest audiences of the whole conference, dozens of people sitting on the floor aiid craning their necks from adjoining corridors.

' The main question that soemed to emerge was: Do animals think and have a goal before them, or are all • their actions merely-mechanical? '

Professor William McDougall, the American psychologist, showed the film of Dee and Dum. '

' When Dee, a black-eyed little animal, looking something between a cat and a squirrel, was hungry, ho was seen to go to a box and open an elaborate system of latches on the four sides and top in order to get into tho box, where the food lay. Altogether Dee opened twenty-four interlocking latches iii a few seconds.

Dum then came into the picture and did some very thoughtful-looking manoeuvring to roach pieces of meat dangling at the end of strings. Professor McDougall argued that the animal was "striving at.a goal." He suggested that animal behaviour was the key to human psychology. He admitted the enormous gap between the animal and the man, but emphasised the importance of recognising all animal behaviour as goal-seeking.

Professor D. Katz, of Manchester, said that a Munich psychologist put a dog in a. bos and drove it about four miles. Then it was released, and the dog walked home in twp. hours, i.The experiment was repeated, and. the ', dog then went another way, and reached homo in one and a half hours. . ."..'..

Professor Kate said that, they had no idea hoiy tho dog founS its way back.

That was one wajfi.in which animals were superior to human beings. Animals had consciousness:—feelings, perceptions, and emotions-—but only human beings had sclfconseiousn.ess,: Mr. Bex Knight, Anderson Lecturer in Comparative Psychology at Aberdeen University, said that they' nriist .be cautious in passing .froiii observation, of the actions of animals to conclusions about the laehaviour of men.

"The hen eneourages'her chickens to leave her : and' fend for themselves," said Mr. Knight. ".When they have attained a eci'taiu size she pecks them and prevents them clustering round her. Tho human mother, on the-other hand, often encourages her children to cling to her, and so delays, their becoming independent. This.' difference is due, partly at least, to cultural traditions."

There were too many people /who believed that from an, anecdote of a single animal action, without scientific inquiry into its antecedents, they could deter-: mine what its cause must-have been. There was the celebrated case, of the horse in Germany. A committee of zoologists, biologists, and psychologists saw,the horse, and decided that it used to read and play chess. They came to tho conclusion that it .had the intelligence of a boy of thirteen. Afterwards it. was clearly shown that all the. tricks the horse did were, the result of 'Sc-' quired habit and patient teaching. ... ;

'' When' I was experimenting ■ with a cat that got out of a box by pulling the stirrup, even my colleague .who saw the animal going through its. tricks found it difficult to resist, the conclusion that it was planning the way to get out, whereas it was merely the result of training. This was proved by the fact that even when thecat was. in. the box and the door was open it .pulled: the stirrup before it came out." (Laughter.)

Ho did not, wish to/deiry that-animals had minds. He merely said *hat rif we took a particular, animal' action, we should look for its bodilyrcanses: tather; than for its mental ;accbmpaniments.'