From two of the world''s most distinguished experts in animal
behaviour, this book offers a radical, creative, and accessible new
approach to understanding animal minds through the structures they
build. Animal behaviour has long been a battleground between the
competing claims of nature and nurture, with the possible role of
cognition in behaviour as a recent addition to this debate. There
is an untapped trove of behavioural data that can tell us a great
deal about how the animals draw from these neural strategies: the
structures animals build provide a superb window on the workings of
the animal mind. "Building Minds" examines animal architecture
across a range of species, from those whose blueprints are largely
innate such as spiders and their webs to those whose challenging
structures seem to require intellectual insight, planning, and even
aesthetics such as birds'' nests, or beavers'' dams. Beginning with
instinct and the simple homes of solitary insects, James and Carol
Gould move on to conditioning; the "cognitive map" and how it
evolved; and the role of planning and insight. Finally, they
reflect on what animal building tells us about the nature of human
intelligence - showing why humans, unlike many animals, need to
build their castles in the air.
關於作者:
James L Gould is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
at Princeton University and one of the world''s leading experts in
animal behaviour. With science writer Carol Grant Gould he has
written The Animal Mind, Sexual Selection, and The Honey Bee, all
considered classic books on animal behaviour for lay audiences.
They live in Princeton, New Jersey.