Comparative chemosensory cognition.

Don Griffin, one of the foremost students of comparative cognition, offered the following definition of cognition: “The term cognition is ordinarily taken to mean information processing in human and nonhuman central nervous systems that often leads to choices and decisions” (Griffin and Speck, 2004). Clearly we can study cognition by analyzing animal information processing systems and the manner in which behavioral choices and decision making are altered by experience. The use of olfactory information for guiding a wide range of basic biological decisions is ubiquitous in animals, including humans (Gelperin, 2010). Chemosensory processing, and particularly olfactory information processing, is a particularly attractive modality within which to seek comparative insights into cognitive processes underlying learning and memory.