Human Models of Animal Behavior

Abstract

Similarities between the behavior of humans and other animals in analogous tasks suggest that simitar cognitive processes are involved. Human studies provide an efficient way to collect data with low variability, and animal studies provide a way to collect a large amount of data under controlled conditions, study a wide range of manipulations, limit the range of plausible explanations, and develop explanations in terms of brain mechanisms. Examples are taken from studies of timing that used similar procedures for humans and other animals.