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Voudouris, K.

Analogies and the associative-cognitive distinction in comparative psychology.

Biol. Philos. 40:19 (2025)
DOI
Open Access Green möglich sobald Postprint bei der ZB eingereicht worden ist.
Hypotheses about how and why animals behave the way they do are frequently labelled as either associative or cognitive. This has been taken as evidence for a fundamental distinction between two kinds of behavioural processes. However, there is significant disagreement about how to define this distinction and whether it ought to be rejected entirely. Rather than seeking a definition of the associative-cognitive distinction, or advocating for its rejection, I argue that it is an artefact of the way that comparative psychologists generate hypotheses. I suggest that hypotheses for non-human animal behaviour are often generated by analogy with hypotheses drawn from human psychology and associative learning theory, a justifiable strategy since analogies help to establish the pursuit-worthiness of a hypothesis. Any apparent distinction is a misleading characterisation of what is a complex web of hypotheses that explain diverse behavioural phenomena. The analogy view of the distinction has three advantages. It motivates the apparent existence of the distinction based on a common inference strategy in science, analogical reasoning. It accounts for why the distinction has been difficult to articulate, because of the diversity of possible analogies. Finally, it delimits the role of the distinction in downstream inferences about animal behaviour.
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Publikationstyp Artikel: Journalartikel
Dokumenttyp Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
Schlagwörter Associative learning; Comparative cognition; Associative-Cognitive distinction; Analogy; Nonhuman Animals; Macaca-mulatta; Insight; Neuroscience; Uncertainty; Responses; Paradigm; Systems; Monkeys; Humans
ISSN (print) / ISBN 0169-3867
e-ISSN 1572-8404
Zeitschrift Biology and Philosophy
Quellenangaben Band: 40, Heft: 5, Seiten: , Artikelnummer: 19 Supplement: ,
Verlag Springer
Verlagsort Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 Gz Dordrecht, Netherlands
Begutachtungsstatus Peer reviewed
Institut(e) Institute of AI for Health (AIH)
Förderungen Economic and Social Research Council