The field of psychology has witnessed an increase in its reliance on empiricism to the point that many researchers operate with a complete disregard for the role of philosophy in their pursuit of knowledge. The resultant segmentation of the field and decline in such important areas as comparative psychology can be attributed to this trend, indicating the need for the role of both philosophical and scientific knowledge to be rightly applied and understood. A return to a proper utilization of philosophy in guiding empirical questions and interpreting results is offered as a means of revitalizing the field of comparative psychology. The philosophical approach of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas is discussed as a means to do so, as it provides a valuable perspective in guiding research and enabling the scientist to interpret results in an integrated and informative manner, whereby the phenotypic comparisons of humans and non-humans can be understood coherently.

Behavioral research is often enhanced by automated techniques, where experimental parameters and detection of behavior are controlled by electromechanical systems. Automated research promotes refinements in measurement, greater experimental control, longer durations of data collection, reduction of observer fatigue, and may permit new types of research to be conducted. In comparative psychology, use of automated techniques are often restricted to popular model organisms of fields such as behavior analysis and behavioral neuroscience. One factor contributing to this species-restriction may be the availability of automated research equipment, as most commercial research equipment is designed for rodents, and many researchers lack the skills required to create their own automated equipment. However, there are alternatives to commercial equipment, as some behavioral scientists have made available their own species-flexible, low-cost research equipment. In this paper, we provide three reviews. We first review recent trends in automated comparative psychology research, and then relate this to a second review on currently available automated research equipment. We also review affordable alternatives to commercial equipment that have been designed by behavioral scientists. Finally, we discuss useful technological skills that may allow comparative psychologists to take automation into their own hands and design equipment specific to their species and research topic.

The data of comparative psychology generally differ from the majority of data collected within mainstream psychology in several key respects – most notably in the diversity of forms of measurement and fewer number of subjects. We believe null hypothesis significance testing may not be the most appropriate method of analysis for comparative psychology for these reasons. Comparative psychology has a rich history of performing several analyses on a few subjects due to a philosophical interest in individual subject behavior, along with group assessments. Since first being published in 2011, Observation Oriented Modeling has successfully been used to analyze individual subjects’ responses from honey bees, horses, humans, and rattlesnakes. Observation Oriented Modeling is highly flexible and has allowed comparative researchers to perform a variety of assessments comparable to null hypothesis significance testing’s T-Tests, One-way ANOVA, and Repeated-Measures ANOVA while producing easily-interpretable and, most importantly, relevant results. This paper describes the diverse manners in which comparative psychologists can assess individual and group performances without concerns of statistical assumptions and limitations that complicate assessments when employing Null Hypothesis Significance Testing.

Experiments on the use of honey bees ( Apis mellifera ) to solve practical problems are described. These problems include studies of alcoholism, influence of consumer products on Africanized honey bees, the effect of pesticides considered “harmless,” and the detection of adulterated hive products. The results of these experiments indicate that the study of invertebrate learning conducted within a comparative-psychological paradigm can provide much useful data to the solution of practical problems of significance to psychologists.