Describe the anecdotal method and introspection by analogy. Explain Romanes’s mental ladder.
Romane’s was chosen by Darwin himself to lead his findings of comparative psychology. It meant to analyze the animal behavior and intelligence. Romane studied animals ranging from elephants, monkeys, domesticated animals to protozoa, spiders, and ants.
He wanted to stress that when it comes to reasoning there is no difference between how a crab thinks and how a man thinks.. He collected several data by a method called as anecdotal method. This method relied on casual observation or narrations by untrained and unskilled observers.
The other method was introspection by analogy. Observers in this method assume that the animal they are observing has the same mental capabilities like them. The observers drive an analogy between the mental processes gong inside an animal to be similar to the processes going on in a human mind also.
In introspection by analogy, animals have the same type of ideation, reasoning, problem solving skill, and rationalization just like humans. Romane believed that cats have higher intelligence, only after monkeys and elephants.
He developed a mental ladder that arranged animals according to their intelligence. He placed the apes and dogs on the top followed by monkeys and elephants. All these animals possessed different forms of intelligence. Some knew use of tools, while some could communicate. Crabs showed reason, and memory was exhibited by starfishes.