Barbara Smuts, a professor of psychology, introduced her experience of communicating with animals in her article under the title “Encounters with Animal Minds,” published in 2001. The article provides an overview of the author’s direct relationships with baboons in their natural habitat and with her dog. The author argues that these encounters with animal social structures and psychology taught her that animals followed social conventions similar to humans.
When reading the article, I was genuinely interested in discovering the experience of the professor. The article’s combination of a scientific approach and a story-like narration from the perspective of the immediate witness of the described observations helped me perceive the information easily and comprehensively. It was particularly insightful for me to learn how social contracts of personal space and the distribution of power among the individual baboons within their so-called society developed (Smuts 296). I was surprised by the complexity of communicational means that baboons used in their interactions and the multifaceted information they obtained from exchanging signs or sounds when entering each other’s personal space (Smuts 297). Moreover, the article was insightful in yielding my contemplation on the topic of mutual trust in building human-animal interaction, both in wild habitats and in a home setting.
Thus, after reading the article, I obtained new knowledge about animal interaction and relationship-building principles not only in communicating with each other but with humans. The article contributed to my perception of animals as individuals whose minds are complex and capable of social self development and whose relationship-building is similar to humans’. This reading expanded my knowledge and encouraged my interest in learning more about animals from a psychological perspective.
Work Cited
Smuts, Barbara. “Encounters with Animal Minds.” Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 8, no. 5–7, 2001, pp. 293–309.