[1] Donald Griffin, a zoology professor in the United States, set up the foundations for researches in the cognitive awareness of animals within their habitats.
According to Jamieson & Bekoff (1993),[3] "Tinbergen's four questions about the evolution, adaptation, causation and development of behavior can be applied to the cognitive and mental abilities of animals."
[5] They proposed that researchers should firstly study how people behave in their natural, real world environments and then move to the lab.
[6] Traditionally, cognitive ethologists have questioned research methods that isolate animals in unnatural surroundings and present them with a limited set of artificial stimuli, arguing that such techniques favor the study of artificial issues that are not relevant to an understanding of the natural behavior of animals.
[7] Bekoff, M and Allen, C (1997) "identify three major groups of people (among some of whose members there are blurred distinctions) with different views on cognitive ethology, namely, slayers, skeptics, and proponents."