rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    non sort: The
    title: genesis of animal play
    sub title: testing the limits
  name:
    name part: Burghardt, Gordon M.
    name part: 1941-
    role:
      role term: creator
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: Electronic books.
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: mau
    place:
      place term: Cambridge, Mass
    publisher: MIT Press
    date issued: ©2005
    date issued: 2005
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: remote
    extent: 1 online resource (xvi, 501 pages) : illustrations
  abstract: In The Genesis of Animal Play, Gordon Burghardt examines the origins and evolution of play in humans and animals. He asks what play might mean in our understanding of evolution, the brain, behavioral organization, and psychology. Is play essential to development? Is it the driving force behind human and animal behavior? What is the proper place for the study of play in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences?The engaging nature of play--who does not enjoy watching a kitten attack a ball of yarn?--has made it difficult to study. Some scholars have called play undefinable, nonexistent, or a mystery outside the realm of scientific analysis. Using the comparative perspectives of ethology and psychology, The Genesis of Animal Play goes further than other studies in reviewing the evidence of play throughout the animal kingdom, from human babies to animals not usually considered playful. Burghardt finds that although playfulness may have been essential to the origin of much that we consider distinctive in human (and mammalian) behavior, it only develops through a specific set of interactions among developmental, evolutionary, ecological, and physiological processes. Furthermore, play is not always beneficial or adaptive.Part I offers a detailed discussion of play in placental mammals (including children) and develops an integrative framework called surplus resource theory. The most fascinating and most controversial sections of the book, perhaps, are in the seven chapters in part II in which Burghardt presents evidence of playfulness in such unexpected groups of animals as kangaroos, birds, lizards, and "Fish That Leap, Juggle, and Tease." Burghardt concludes by considering the implications of the diversity of play for future research, and suggests that understanding the origin and development of play can shape our view of society and its accomplishments through history.
  note: Gordon M. Burghardt.
  subject:
    topic: Play behavior in animals
  subject:
    topic: Play
  subject:
    topic: Behavior evolution
  subject:
    topic: COGNITIVE SCIENCES/General
  subject:
    topic: BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES/Evolution
  classification: QL763.5 .B87 2005eb
  classification: 591.56/3
  identifier: 9780262269551
  identifier: 0262269554
  identifier: 9780262025430
  identifier: 0262025434
  identifier: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/3229.001.0001
  record info:
    record content source: OCoLC-P
    record creation date: 021220
    record change date: 20221121161754.7
    record identifier: in00004600519
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng