Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior - Hardcover

Grandin, Temple; Johnson, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743247698 ISBN 13: 9780743247696

Publisher: Scribner, 2004

Synopsis

The animal scientist author of Thinking in Pictures draws on her experience as an autistic to identify commonalities between animals and autistics, offering insight into how animals process sensory information and how they often possess unrecognized savant-level talents. 75,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Authors

Temple Grandin earned her Ph.D. in animal science from the University of Illinois, went on to become an associate professor at Colorado State University, and wrote two books on autism, including the seminal Thinking in Pictures. One of the most celebrated -- and effective -- animal advocates on the planet, Grandin revolutionized animal movement systems and spearheaded reform of the quality of life for the world's agricultural animals.

Catherine Johnson, Ph.D., is a writer specializing in neuropsychiatry and the brain and is the author of three previous books, including Shadow Syndromes with John J. Ratey. She lives with her husband and three sons in New York. Two of her sons have autism.

Reviews

Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, debunked common assumptions about autism in Thinking in Pictures (1995). In her latest book, she sheds new light on animal behavior. Comparing an autistic person’s frontal lobes (which can receive mixed messages from the brain) to animals’ less developed ones, Grandin argues that autism can help us understand animals’ more defined actions. She offers funny, thought-provoking insights into their conduct—Mozart’s pet starling inspired his music; some dogs sense people’s oncoming seizures. A thoughtful, concluding "troubleshooting" guide to animal behavior contains useful advice. A few poorly edited, repetitive chapters, not to mention the controversial brain research cited, irked some critics. Overall, however, readers will leave Animals with greater understanding of why Fluffy feels—and acts—the way he does.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Starred Review. Philosophers and scientists have long wondered what goes on in the minds of animals, and this fascinating study gives a wealth of illuminating insights into that mystery. Grandin, an animal behavior expert specializing in the design of humane slaughter systems, is autistic, and she contends that animals resemble autistic people in that they think visually rather than linguistically and perceive the world as a jumble of mesmerizing details rather than a coherent whole. Animals—cows, say, on their way through a chute—are thus easily spooked by novelties that humans see as trivialities, such as high-pitched noises, drafts and dangling clothes. Other animals accomplish feats of obsessive concentration; squirrels really do remember where each acorn is buried. The portrait she paints of the mammalian mind is both alien and familiar; she shows that beasts are capable of sadistic cruelty, remorse, superstition and surprising discernment (in one experiment, pigeons were taught to distinguish between early period Picasso and Monet). Grandin (Thinking in Pictures) and Johnson (coauthor of Shadow Syndromes) deploy a simple, lucid style to synthesize a vast amount of research in neurology, cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology, supplementing it with Grandin's firsthand observations of animal behavior and her own experiences with autism, engaging anecdotes about how animals interact with each other and their masters, and tips on how to pick and train house pets. The result is a lively and absorbing look at the world from animals' point of view.
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Temple Grandin has been known to crawl through slaughterhouses to get a sense of what the animals there are experiencing. An autistic woman who as a child was recommended for institutionalization, Grandin has managed not only to enter society’s mainstream but ultimately to become prominent in animal research. An associate professor at Colorado State University, she designs facilities used worldwide for humane handling of livestock. She also invented a "hug machine" (based on a cattle-holding chute) that calms autistic children. In Animals in Translation, co-authored with science writer Catherine Johnson, Grandin makes an intriguing argument that, psychologically, animals and autistic people have a great deal in common—and that both have mental abilities typically underestimated by normal people. The book is a valuable, if speculative, contribution to the discussion of both autism and animal intelligence, two subjects on which there is little scientific consensus. Autistics, in Grandin’s view, represent a "way station" between average people, with all their verbal and conceptual abilities, and animals. In touring animal facilities, Grandin often spots details—a rattling chain, say, or a fluttering piece of cloth—that disturb the animals but have been overlooked by the people in charge. She also draws on psychological studies to show how oblivious humans can be to their surroundings. Ordinary humans seem to be less detail-oriented than animals and autistics. Grandin argues that animals have formidable cognitive capabilities, albeit specialized ones, whereas humans are cognitive generalists. Dogs are smell experts, birds are migration specialists, and so on. In her view, some animals have a form of genius—much as autistic savants can perform feats of memory and calculation far beyond the abilities of average people. Some dogs, for example, can predict when their owner is about to have a seizure. Delving into animal emotion, aggression and suffering, Grandin gives tips that may be useful for caretakers of pets and farm animals. She also notes that humans seem to need, and thrive on, the proximity of animals. Indeed, she states provocatively, in the process of becoming human we gave up something primal, and being around animals helps us get a measure of that back.

Kenneth Silber

Grandin is well known as an autistic person who works with animals, redefining both what is possible for autistics and the way we look at how animals think. With coauthor Johnson, trustee of an autism research group and mother of autistic sons, Grandin explores the world of animal thought and compares it with both how typical humans and autistic humans think. Grandin began to realize during her years of education that animals and autistics process the world in the same way: as discrete pictures, sounds, and smells--in other words, they do not convert experiences into abstract thought or language. In telling her story, and then in discussing different aspects of animal behavior and perception, Grandin illustrates her arguments with descriptions from her own research, the research of other animal behaviorists and psychologists, and anecdotal stories about animal behavior. This fascinating book will teach readers to see as animals see, to be a little more visual and a little less verbal, and, as a unique analysis of animal behavior, it belongs in all libraries.^B Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0743247698
• ISBN 13: 9780743247696
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368