Customer Reviews

Dolphin Cognition and Behavior: A Comparative Approach (Comparative Cognition and Neuroscience Series)

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DOLPHIN COGNITION AND BEHAVIOR: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH contains 18 papers originally presented at the Hubbs Marine Research Institute in San Diego from 3 to 5 October 1980. The papers cover dolphin brain evolution, anatomy and physiology, event related potentials (ERPs) and latency in auditory processing, sensory and behavioral psychophysics, echolocation capabilities, communication capabilities, perception and intelligence, signaling behavior, and social cooperative behaviors.

Some scientists today consider dolphin intelligence to be little better than a dog's. Others like Daniel C. Dennett come close to denying the existence of either intelligence or consciousness in people! But, perhaps Dennett has done us a favor. If it so hard to prove the existence of high intelligence and consciousness in people, then this explains why it is so hard to prove the existence of intelligence and consciousness in other species like dolphins!

This text is refreshingly free of such contemporary biases. It sticks to medical, neurological, cognitive and physcial evidence. A lot of attention is paid, as it should be, to echolocation and the physics of sound transmission and reception underwater, the dolphin's biological version of active and passive sonar.

One of the editors, Jeanette A. Thomas (Editor), et al., has just published ECHOLOCATION IN BATS AND DOLPHINS (2003). Based on the high quality of this text, I have already ordered my copy of this new book from Amazon.Com.