Biologists as far back as Darwin have pondered whether animals can think and have feelings. It was the famed naturalist who proposed that animal minds (and human ones, of course) must have evolved as other traits had, developing the necessary skills to function in their particular environment. Not everyone agreed with this view, however. The predominant theory in the first half of the 20th century was behaviorism, the idea that animals are incapable of conscious decision-making and that all of their actions can be explained in terms of innate behavior.
Today the field of animal cognition has moved beyond behaviorism to embrace many new areas of study. Most of the work involves animals in captivity because so many variables are encountered in the wild. Some of the animals studied and the findings on their cognitive abilities are listed below.
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