The Loci, The Pathway, The Network: C. R. Carpenter and the Origins of Cognitive Field Research in Primatology

Memoria: A Fundamental Concept at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

The study of memory integrates different humanistic and scientific disciplines. Philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology are related due to this common research objective. This is due to the interest in exploring how the mind relates to human nature. For that reason, it is also common to find conceptualizations of this idea from the ancient Greeks to the present. This first part explores the idea of memoria (memory) in the beginning of the twentieth century in order to understand modern research in primate spatial memory. At the beginning of the century, two main views on the idea of memory were discussed in academic circles in Europe and the United States. Bartlett (1932) theorized in his conception of memory by developing the so-called schemata framework. Schemata involve the continuous organization of past experiences. The construction of the schemata implies the ability to recall any previous experience from any moment in the organism's life (Bartlett 1932). According to Postman (1985), what made Bartlett's model salient at the moment of its conception was that it permitted "ecologically valid" research on memory, which strongly influenced the field. By this time the introduction of the concept of goal also affected the study of memory. William McDougall (1926) suggested that particular purposes that served as goals shape the instinct (behavior) of individuals. Goal-directed behaviors formulated a series of problems that might be resolved in any particular and given situation. In addition the emergence of a new field of research related to the goal-directed behavior in honey bees (e.g., Tinbergen and Kruyt 1938; Baerends 1941) influenced, challenged and changed perceptions of information retention and spatial memory in animals (see Dyer 2000).

At the same time Edward C. Tolman (1932) formulated a series of key arguments about memory and learning under a neobehavioralist framework. He argued after trials with mice in experimental cages, "some goal-objects cause learning to appear more rapidly than do others" (Tolman 1932:39). Tolman (1932) added that animals not only conceptualize spatial distance but also temporal distance. He explicitly introduced the idea of goal direction in behavioral studies, whereas the concept of learning acquired a new dimension for evaluating memory in organisms.

Dutch animal psychologists J. A. Bieren de Hann and A. Portielje suggested that the study of animal behavior might be directed to the study of the "consciousness," and furthermore, "they viewed animal behavior as goal-directed processes steered by purposive instincts" (van Hooff 2000:119). Bierens de Haan's research clearly was aligned with the research of William McDougall and Robert Yerkes (van Hooff 2000:119). The Bierens de Haan works (1925, 1928, 1929, 1931a, 1931b) provided a fundamental methodological and theoretical basis for the earliest experimental research on primates during the 1920s and 1930s by the United States-based researcher Heinrich Klüver. Klüver's (1933) research was directed at the understanding of processes of learning and uses of the senses in forming mental representations in primates. However, his experiments had as their ultimate aim to understand the processes of mental retention (memory) in nonhuman primates:

Suppose a monkey on the basis of a certain training, reacts "relationally" to stimuli he has never "seen" before, and suppose he does so several months after completion of the training. There is a "retention" of the previously established "relational" tendency. . . . The crucial point is that the "relational" tendency is retained only in the presence of certain stimuli and not in the presence of others. No matter whether "central" or "peripheral" factors are assumed as a basis for retention, the operation of these factors depends on certain conditions in the "field" reacted to by the animal. The study of these conditions is of paramount importance for the analysis of behavior"

(Klüver 1933:353-354).

Klüver's book appeared to have an impact on the earliest primatological field research. In sum, during the 1930s the notion of memory and such related concepts as retention, learning, and goal attainment played a fundamental role...