This collection of essays was written by former students, associates, admirers, critics and friends of Donald R. Griffin -- the creator of cognitive ethology. Stimulated by his work, this volume presents ideas and experiments in the field of cognitive ethology -- the exploration of the mental experiences of animals as they behave in their natural environment during the course of their normal lives. Cognitive Ethology discusses the possibility that animals may have abilities to experience, communicate, reason, and plan beyond those usually ascribed to them in a black box or stimulus-response...

Speech has long been thought of as a uniquely defining characteristic of humans. Yet song birds, like humans, communicate using learned signals (song, speech) that are acquired from their parents by a process of vocal imitation. Both song and speech begin as amorphous vocalizations (subsong, babble) that are gradually transformed into an individualized version of the parents' speech, including dialects. With contributions from both the founding forefathers and younger researchers of this field, this book provides a comprehensive summary of birdsong neurobiology, and identifies the common...