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The Scientific Validity Of Subjective Concepts In Models Of Animal Welfare, Françoise Wemelsfelder Jun 2016

The Scientific Validity Of Subjective Concepts In Models Of Animal Welfare, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Françoise Wemelsfelder, PhD

This paper takes a closer look at the subjectivity/objectivity relationship, as it plays a role in the science of animal welfare. It argues that subjective, experiential states in animals such as well-being and suffering are, contrary to what is often assumed, open to empirical observation and scientific assessment. The presumably purely private, inaccessible nature of such states is not an inherent property of these states, but derives from their misguided conception as ‘causal objects’ in mechanistic models of behaviour. This inevitably endows subjective experience with a ‘hidden’ status. However, subjective experience should be approached on its own conceptual grounds, i.e. …


Visual Search And Attention In Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata): Associative Cuing And Sequential Priming, Kazuhiro Goto, Alan B. Bond, Marianna Burks, Alan C. Kamil Apr 2014

Visual Search And Attention In Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata): Associative Cuing And Sequential Priming, Kazuhiro Goto, Alan B. Bond, Marianna Burks, Alan C. Kamil

Alan Bond Publications

Visual search for complex natural targets requires focal attention, either cued by predictive stimulus associations or primed by a representation of the most recently detected target. Because both processes can focus visual attention, cuing and priming were compared in an operant search task to evaluate their relative impacts on performance and to determine the nature of their interaction in combined treatments. Blue jays were trained to search for pairs of alternative targets among distractors. Informative or ambiguous color cues were provided before each trial, and targets were presented either in homogeneous blocked sequences or in constrained random order. Initial task …


The Scientific Validity Of Subjective Concepts In Models Of Animal Welfare, Françoise Wemelsfelder May 1997

The Scientific Validity Of Subjective Concepts In Models Of Animal Welfare, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Animal Welfare Collection

This paper takes a closer look at the subjectivity/objectivity relationship, as it plays a role in the science of animal welfare. It argues that subjective, experiential states in animals such as well-being and suffering are, contrary to what is often assumed, open to empirical observation and scientific assessment. The presumably purely private, inaccessible nature of such states is not an inherent property of these states, but derives from their misguided conception as ‘causal objects’ in mechanistic models of behaviour. This inevitably endows subjective experience with a ‘hidden’ status. However, subjective experience should be approached on its own conceptual grounds, i.e. …