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Animal Anticipation: A Perspective

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Handbook of Anticipation

Abstract

Anticipatory behavior may be defined as behavior expressed in the “here and now” based upon expected events in the near future and information processed in the past. Hence, it suggests an element of awareness of past, present, and future on behalf of the subject. In this chapter I discuss two examples of animal behavior, which at first sight may equally qualify as anticipatory behavior: migrating south in the fall to survive harsh winter conditions and deciding to continue or stop foraging behavior in face of a potential threat, such as indicated by smells (or other signals) of a predator. I show that in many animal species, awareness is present, a global working space, allowing the animal to adjust behavior when stimuli have changed their value; the latter implies some idea of the notion of the future. In addition, I discuss that only the foraging-predator threat case may be labeled as anticipatory behavior in the sense of containing an element of awareness of past, present, and future. This is framed in the wider context of decision-making.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Ecology and Physiology, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Ruud van den Bos

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  1. Ruud van den Bos
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Correspondence to Ruud van den Bos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Roberto Poli

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van den Bos, R. (2019). Animal Anticipation: A Perspective. In: Poli, R. (eds) Handbook of Anticipation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91554-8_18

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