Editing Animal cognition (section)

=== Earliest inferences ===
[[File:Drinking frooti standing at edge.jpg|thumb|335x335px|A monkey drinking [[Frooti]] from a juice box using its hands]]
The mind and behavior of non-human animals has captivated the human imagination for centuries. Many writers, such as [[René Descartes|Descartes]], have speculated about the presence or absence of the animal mind.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Descartes R | date = 1649 | title = Passions of the Soul}}</ref> These speculations led to many observations of animal behavior before modern science and testing were available. This ultimately resulted in the creation of multiple hypotheses about animal intelligence.

One of [[Aesop's Fables]] was ''[[The Crow and the Pitcher]]'', in which a crow drops pebbles into a vessel of water until he is able to drink. This was a relatively accurate reflection of the capability of [[Corvidae|corvids]] to understand water displacement.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326182039.htm |title=Crows understand water displacement at the level of a small child: Show causal understanding of a 5- to 7-year-old child |website=ScienceDaily |access-date=2019-12-08}}</ref> The Roman naturalist [[Pliny the Elder]] was the earliest to attest that said story reflects the behavior of real-life corvids.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sDwZAAAAYAAJ&q=pliny+crow+urn+stones+water&pg=PA525|title=The Natural History of Pliny | volume = 2 |last=Pliny the Elder|year=1855|publisher=H. G. Bohn |isbn=9780598910769}}</ref>

[[Aristotle]], in [[Aristotle's biology|his biology]], hypothesized a [[causal chain]] where an animal's sense organs transmitted information to an organ capable of making decisions, and then to a motor organ. Despite Aristotle's [[cardiocentrism]] (mistaken belief that cognition occurred in the heart), this approached some modern understandings of [[Information processing (psychology)|information processing]].<ref>{{Cite journal| vauthors = Corcilius K, Gregoric P |s2cid=52242579 |date=2013-01-01 |title=Aristotle's Model of Animal Motion |journal=Phronesis |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=52–97 |doi=10.1163/15685284-12341242}}</ref>

Early inferences were not necessarily precise or accurate. Nonetheless, interest in animal mental abilities, and comparisons to humans, increased with early [[myrmecology]], the study of ant behavior, as well as the classification of humans as primates beginning with [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus]].