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Why Cognitive Psychologists Should Know Comparative Psychology; Why Comparative Psychologists Should Know Cognitive Psychology
Abstract
The author contrasts the interpretative perspectives offered by comparative and cognitive psychology. Four strengths of the comparative program are considered in the context of recent research on animals' capacity for uncertainty monitoring or metacognition. However, several historical limitations of the comparative perspective are also disc—in these areas the cognitive perspective holds the stronger interpretative hand. The author considers the negative consequences that comparative psychology has garnered from the continued premium it has placed on low-level associative explanations of behavioral phenomena, and the constructive synergy that might come from integrating the comparative and cognitive programs.