Humans' perceptions of animal mentality: ascriptions of thinking

On rating scales, 294 students indicated whether it was reasonable to say that a dog, cat, bird, fish, and school-age child had the capacity for 12 commonplace human mental operations or experiences. Factor analysis of responses identified 2 levels of attributions, simple thinking and complex thinking. The child and all animals were credited with simple thinking, but respondents were much more likely to ascribe complex thinking to the child. (A pilot study with 8 animal-behavior professionals generally replicated these results.) Certain mental categories (e.g., emotion) were judged by students to be simple for all target types; others (e.g., conservation) were judged to be universally complex. Further factoring revealed articulate ascriptions for key mental categories. Play and imagine was seen as simple in the animals but complex for the child, but enumeration and sorting and dream were seen as simple in the child but complex for the animals.