8.2. Ethology at the present stage of development

In the modern sense, ethology is the science of animal behavior. All ethologists are united in their views on what range of problems this science should cover. It is believed that all the diversity of ethological problems can be reduced to four main issues that N. Tinbergen has identified. However, if there is unity on the issues among the ethologists, then there are lively discussions about specific ways of finding answers to these questions.

Thus, according to a number of ethologists, the subject of ethology can be attributed only to those observations of the behavior of animals that were made in their natural environment, that is, in the wild. Other scientists recognize the right to the existence of a special branch of ethology - anthropogenic ethology. This area includes observations of animals that are not produced in natural conditions, but in places of human activity.

The next point of view on the subject of ethology and ways of obtaining knowledge in this science is experimental zoopsychology. Its arsenal includes such methods as modeling a variety of behavioral situations that are not found in the natural habitats of this animal, laboratory studies and experiments. The control over the obtained results and their statistical processing are very important. Proponents of the classical direction of ethology do not recognize experimental zoopsychology as part of ethology.

According to the fourth point of view, zoopsychology is a holistic science that includes ethology (observation of animals in natural conditions), experimental psychology (experiments on modeling various behavioral situations), and physiology (morphological and functional studies of the brain). At the same time, in no case can one consider all these branches of zoopsychology as separate, especially the parts opposed to each other. They complement the information provided by another industry. For example, these ethologies are very important to consider in conjunction with the observations obtained by the physiology. This will help to trace not only the behavioral act itself, but also to reveal its causes, the mechanisms that underlie it, streamline and systematize the facts, and make the results of observations more visual.

Ethology at the present stage of development includes many hypotheses and theories. Recently, communicative and socio-biological concepts have been intensively developed in ethology. Sociobiology as a science is often contrasted with ethology itself. Proponents of such ideas believe that the range of problems of ethology includes the study of only the biological aspects of behavioral responses of animals, while sociobiology studies the problems of social relations of animals and behavioral ethology. In this case, ethology is exclusively theoretical, "contemplative", it is a peculiar system of philosophical concepts, which is of an explanatory nature. Sociobiology is considered as a “computational” direction associated with the analysis of behavioral reactions at the level of mechanisms; it is a more exact science than ethology. However, sociobiology cannot be opposed to ethology, because when studying a number of behavioral forms, it is difficult to divide behavior into “ethological” and “sociobiological” moments.

In this connection, some authors distinguish the so-called “non-linguistic” hypothesis of behavior. This hypothesis is based on the notion of equivalence of how animals respond to various stimuli. In this case, the same nature of the reaction will serve as a way to establish social ties. This introduces the concept of forming an equivalent class — responding to different stimuli in the same way (it is assumed that these stimuli belong to the same class. At the same time, a kind of combination of sensory keys takes place, which serve for individual recognition of individuals and situations. Such equivalence of stimuli will help describe the formation of abstract representations in animals such as sameness, symmetry, transitivity, or equivalence. Abstract representations can be used by animals in various social and communicative relationships, for example, with danger signals, rivalry over territory, hierarchical relationships in groups, kinship or friendly interactions. Experience gained by ethology at the present stage of development suggests the possibility of forming abstract images in animals based on the generalization of properties of different objects. reliable data on this issue is not enough.

In modern ethology, a comparative approach to the study of behavioral responses of animals is widespread. Most often consider interspecies differences in behaviors. The accumulated to date, extensive material on the behavior of animals belonging to different systematic groups, specified, processed statistically. A comparative approach makes it possible to identify such types and forms of behavior that are common for representatives of different systematic groups, to identify differences in their behavior, that is, to identify independent behavioral variables. In addition, on the basis of a comparative analysis, hypotheses of the evolutionary formation of behavioral forms can be advanced, refined, and verified.

Comparative approach has its own characteristics that must be considered when applying it. First of all, the very complexity of the very allocation of data on the behavior of animals of different levels of historical development. Some abilities of animals that are at a high level of evolutionary development may look simple compared to similar properties of more primitive animals. In addition, it is extremely important to pay special attention to the intraspecific variation in the behavior of animals of the same species. The level of development of any form of behavior in an individual of one evolutionary level may exceed the development of the same ability in a particular individual of a higher level.

It is necessary to take into account the fact that the similarity in the behavior of animals belonging to different species may be associated with the occurrence of a parallel evolutionary adaptation and be based on completely different causes. That is why, in order to conduct an in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences in behavioral forms, one must begin with a study of the behavioral acts of closely related species, and then proceed to more distant species. The main methods will be generalization and comparison.

As an example of the problems of comparative ethology, we can consider the problem of establishing the hierarchical status of animals according to the degree of development of their intellectual abilities. In this case, the difficulty lies primarily in finding ways to adequately assess the capabilities of the intelligence of the animal. Classifications based on an approximate assessment, without developing special methods of assessment, can be erroneous and subjective. However, a number of experimental methods for assessing the mental abilities of animals have been developed, for example, determining the level of development of the intellect in solving experimental tasks for learning. The animal is invited to solve any task of learning, while scientists determine the differences in the mental activity of animals, in the decision-making strategy. It is important to take into account the peculiarities of the habitat of animals in natural conditions, and the behavioral skills possessed by the individual. At the same time, by solving additional problems for choosing a general rule from a set of various stimuli, one can increase the accuracy of experimental conclusions by an order of magnitude. As an example of the application of such an approach to the assessment of the intellectual abilities of animals of different species, one can cite the results of experiments on birds — ravens and pigeons. As a result of the experiments, it was revealed that if the pigeons memorize the solution when solving problems, then the crows are able to learn the general rule of the solution. Thus, according to this approach to assessment, the crows are superior to the pigeons in mental abilities.

Another problem of comparative ethology is the selection of such tasks for animals that would be adequate for many species, and besides, would be comparable with each other.

Modern theoretical ethology pays great attention to the problem of studying the cognitive abilities of animals. The cognitive approach allows us to interpret specific behavioral acts and contributes to the creation of new theories of behavior. As part of this approach, the results of sociological, psychological, cybernetic, linguistic and philosophical studies of thinking are integrated. In general, the cognitive approach is fully developed within the framework of human psychology, but it can also be applied to study the behavior of animals, that is, in ethology. However, in this case a number of problems arise.

Analysis of the behavior of the animal from the perspective of any model of the cognitive process is very complex. Thus, it is extremely difficult to correctly prove to animals the use of deduction or induction as methods of reasoning in solving a problem. The proof of the analogous method of reasoning is simpler, but the model of the cognitive process is inevitably simplified. The use of semantic and syntactic models is even more unrealistic, because they are very far from animal contact forms. As a basis for a cognitive approach in ethology, the idea of ​​thinking can be used as a manipulation of models of the external environment.

The cognitive approach involves the study of the ontogenetic aspect of learning in animals. Introduced the idea of ​​the mechanism of cognitive development. These are a variety of mental processes that improve the ability of the developing organism to process information. Several types of such mechanisms of cognitive development have been identified. All of them are manifested in the cognitive activity of both animals and humans. According to psychologists, cognitive development is based on such neural mechanisms as associative competition, coding, analogies, and the choice of behavior strategy. However, for animals, the existence of such mechanisms is not completely proven.

For ethology, the theory is of great importance, according to which a constant characteristic of any neural mechanism is the competitive interaction between the psychological and physiological processes that occur in the animal's body. Such interaction allows the behavior to be changeable, able to adapt to changing environmental conditions. In addition, thanks to the competition of these processes in the body, there is a constant selection of the most effective mechanisms of cognitive learning in this environment.

In modern ethology there are three basic concepts, each of which has its supporters. The most popular of these is the concept of behaviorism. The theoretical basis of behaviorism is scientific positivism, while the behavior of animals within the framework of a behaviorist concept is studied using objective methods. Scientific experiments are built on the basis of scientific positivism, and explanations of behavioral acts are arranged accordingly. Internal variables are introduced into the explanations, by means of which a link is established between the reaction and the stimulus causing it.

The second trend prevalent in modern ethology is functionalism. Functionalism involves the study of the activity and structure of the organism from a biological as well as from a phylogenetic point of view. It is considered that knowledge of its structure is sufficient for predicting the behavior of an animal. Behavior is considered as adaptive in nature, during the life of an individual, structures and functions may change.

The third concept, which is the opposite of the first two, is cognitive psychology. It studies the diverse processes of information processing, while allowing internal processing of external information. Methods of demonstrating the structures of consciousness that cognitive psychology uses are often not accepted by ethologists, since these methods are more applicable to research and the description of human behavior.

All these trends complement each other, they do not have fundamental differences, but affect only the methodological description techniques.

The material substrate of ethology is the data of functional anatomy, physiology, endocrinology, and other branches of the natural sciences. All these data are extremely important for analyzing and predicting the many forms of animal and human behavior. Ethology at the present stage of development has a neurobiological basis. The study of the nervous system is extremely important for explaining the results of observations of animals in natural or experimental conditions. There is a direct relationship between the behavior of the animal and the development of its nervous system. The higher the animal in terms of development, the more complex the ways of its interaction with the outside world and the more complex its nervous system is.

Neurobiology includes many biological disciplines: the physiology and psychology of humans and animals, embryology, anatomy, genetics, molecular biology, cytology, biophysics and biochemistry. Neurobiology is considering the management of the nervous system of all the vital processes of the animal. It includes molecular neuroscience, neurochemistry, neurogenetics and neuroembryology. All these branches of neuroscience collect information about the mechanisms and place of information storage in the nervous system, its origin and properties.

Modern ethology closely cooperates with such biological branches as the physiology of higher nervous activity, biochemistry and biophysics. These sciences supplement ethology with knowledge of the laws that the nervous system operates during the execution of behavioral acts, which patterns underlie them. Often, evolutionary morphology and anthropology are closely associated with ethology and neurobiology. Anthropology allows us to consider the evolutionary development of the human brain, and evolutionary morphology involves the study of the evolutionary development and formation of the nervous system of animals, ranging from the simplest to human.

The boundaries of neurobiology are fuzzy, but it is possible to accurately determine the general material substrate of all branches of knowledge that are part of it. This substrate is the functional morphology of the nervous system. When studying any processes of the molecular, biochemical or physiological level, it is important to pay attention to the organization of the central and peripheral nervous system at all levels of its organization: anatomical, histological and cytological as a structural basis. However, we should not forget that if the study of the behavioral acts of animals does not consider the structure of the nervous system in general, the reasons for these behavioral forms will remain unexplained. Thus, neurobiology is not only the basis of modern ethology, but also an independent subject.