Abstract
The field of animal learning and behavior has a long history and continues to contribute in important ways to the understanding of cognitive processes in different animal species as compared to human beings. Animals have considerable flexibility to optimize their behaviors in solving particular problems as well as coping with ever-changing circumstances. Research on learning mechanisms from a comparative perspective may deepen our understanding of functional significance of cognitive behaviors of both human and nonhuman species. Examples are taken from studies of list memory, categorization, formation and expansion of equivalence relations among physically different stimuli, and visual search for category.
