INTELLIGENCE IN ANIMALS

Evening Star, Issue 19674, 29 September 1927, Page 12

INTELLIGENCE IN ANIMALS

SOME STRIKING EXAMPLES Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in the ‘ Quarterly Beview ’ for duly, Hums up recent research into the problems surrounding the mental life of animals. “ While tliere are remarkable limitations ill the way of achievement, it seems to be clearly proved that the higher apes are mure intelligent than has been hitherto believed, 1 ' ho says. “If wo take intelligent behaviour to mean that there is a sort of picture logic, putting two and two together, then chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangs are often intelligent. We would apply this term to such activities as the billowing;—Building a pile of four boxes in order to roach the banana dangling from the roof; joining a short length of bamboo rod on to the cud ol a long one, 11ms making a single stick sufficient to retrieve the fruit outside the cage; using 1 lie teeth to whittle down the end of a short slick so that it might lit, into the hollow end of a long one; discovering the clfcctivcno.ss of a lever, and thou proceeding to find other levers of various sizes, including the heavy trapeze bar, with which it was possible to prize asunder the vertical bars of the cage, thus allowing the orang to gratify bis long-cherished desire to look round the corner at bis neighbor in the next cage.” Once orangs learned the delight of a mirror, they discovered other mirrors in polished pieces of metal and pools of rain water. But they always assumed that there was a monkey on tho other side. Nothing in the apes’ behaviour suggests tho power to form or experiment with general ideas. Their intelligence seems to consist in putting pictures together. Even man comparatively rarely uses his power to form ami apply general principles, assorts Profesor Thomson, yet it is there for him to use when ho is compelled to it, and many steps, obvious to tho small child, remain inscrutable to tho orang. “Alan is often intelligent and occasionally rational; animals are often rellcx and instinctive, and occasionally intelligent,” says Professor Thomson. “ When wo rcllect why an animal with a fine brain is not cleverer, we should recall the biological commonplace that no creature is likely to show much more cleverness than tho conditions of its life demand. Tho anthropoid apes are strong and secure; they are as intelligent as is required, just as is a golden eagle.” Until higher aims emerge, ho says, increase of knowledge would mean increase of sorrow. It would not be good for an animal to have much imagination, unless it were going to begin a new ascent of man. Tho special mental handicap of tho apes is their poor repertory of mental images, and thenlack of language. The ape must be actually looking at the factors of his problem. Of language, Professor Thomson says;—“Chimpanzees have many words, indicative of particular experiences,' such as meals and danger, or of particular emotions, such as joy or resentment, but there is no expression of a judgment in oven tho tiniest sentence, and there is not, as is seen in parrots, any social imitation of particular sounds. It is language that widens the folding doors of the mind, which necessity and visualisation have opened.” Elaborate results can he obtained by careful training which dues not bring intelligence into play. These are gained by forming habitual associations between different movements. An elephant can bo trained to put pennies into a slot machine and reject halfpennies, by being first trained to accept pennies and reject half-pennies by the feel, and then to connect the taking of the penny with putting it into the slot. But elephants working with men in the forest, and sheepdogs working with their masters do develop an intelligence capable of dealing with various emergencies as they arise, not by reason in tho strict sense, but by developing a considerable aptitude for putting pictures together. Animals are often credited with more intelligence than they possess, because they have the power to take advantage of natural accidents. The dropping of crabs and clams by gulls on rocks is probably not a regular practice, hut the bird takes advantage of it every time it happens. Yet a thrush has been taught in a week to open a wood-snail effectively

bv hammering it on a rock. A rat can learn to master a labyrinth, a horse to find its way home, in each case by a power of rctraversing a connected series of movements which once proved successful. The “ homing ” power of cats transferred to a distance needs more precise testing. A pigeon’s powers arc largely the result of a graduated education. Ants and bees connect landmarks in a series in which one picture suggests another, but the migrating bird remains a mystery. Learning need not be intelligent. Headless earthworms tend to repeat their .successful experiments. In all animals there is a trickle of mental life, which counts for something in giving some measure of individuality to tho animal’s behaviour.