Bottlenose dolphins understand relationships between concepts

Abstract

Abstract We dispute Penn et al.'s claim of the sharp functional discontinuity between humans and nonhumans with evidence in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) of higher-order generalizations: spontaneous integration of previously learned rules and concepts in response to novel stimuli. We propose that species-general explanations that are “bottom-up” in approach are more plausible than Penn et al.'s innatist approach of a genetically prespecified supermodule.