The Neuroscience of Animal Intelligence

The Neuroscience of Animal Intelligence provides a critical survey of the physiological approach to learning, memory, and intelligence in nonhuman animals. The emphasis throughout is on the implications of physiological research for theories of intelligent processes in intact animals. An introductory chapter examines the historical and theoretical background of the physiological work on learning and memory. Organized according to psychological topics, subsequent chapters proceed from simpler to more complex preparations and processes, emphasizing the implications of the work for behavioral theories. The book explores: non-associative learning, in the marine invertebrate Aplysia, and in the spinal cord and brain of vertebrates; associative learning, concentrating on the invertebrates Aplysia and Hermissenda, and on mechanisms in the cerebellum and hippocampus of mammals; the processing of contextual information, with emphasis on the special role of the hippocampus and the frontal cortex; the fractionation of memory, concentrating on the hippocampus and associated limbic structures. After introducing two new approaches - comparative neurology and computational neuroscience - that complement the preceding chapters, The Neuroscience of Animal Intelligence concludes with a discussion of the role of the neocortex in perception and in general intelligence. Integrating neurobiology and issues of memory in the context of the neuroscience of animal intelligence, Macphail synthesizes behavioral approaches to the study of learning with the search for the underlying physiological mechanisms and anatomical localization of memory.