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Quotidian cognition and the human-nonhuman “divide”: Just more or less of a good thing?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2008

Drew Rendall
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, T1K 3M4, Canada
John R. Vokey
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, T1K 3M4, Canada
Hugh Notman
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Athabasca University, Athabasca, Alberta, T9S 3A3, Canada. d.rendall@uleth.cahttp://people.uleth.ca/~d.rendall/Index.htmvokey@uleth.cahttp://people.uleth.ca/~vokey/hughn@athabasca.cahttp://www.athabascau.ca/anthropology/notman.htm

Abstract

We make three points: (1) Overlooked studies of nonhuman communication originally inspired, but no longer support, the blinkered view of mental continuity that Penn et al. critique. (2) Communicative discontinuities between animals and humans might be rooted in social-cognitive discontinuities, reflecting a common lacuna in Penn et al.'s relational reinterpretation mechanism. (3) However, relational reinterpretation need not be a qualitatively new representational process.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright ©Cambridge University Press 2008

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