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Evolution Commons

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2017

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Articles 181 - 185 of 185

Full-Text Articles in Evolution

Fish Are Flexible Learners Who Can Discriminate Human Faces, Ulrike E. Siebeck Jan 2017

Fish Are Flexible Learners Who Can Discriminate Human Faces, Ulrike E. Siebeck

Animal Sentience

In his book “What a fish knows” Jonathan Balcombe (2016a, b) has created a comprehensive profile of a group of animals still often thought to have a 3-second memory, no ability to feel pain, and a generally limited ability to learn. Chapter by chapter, Balcombe dismantles these and other such assumptions and makes a convincing case that fish have many abilities that are not that different from our own. Here, I focus on one example which supports the notion that fish are flexible learners and able to perform tasks which are generally thought to require the advanced processing power of …


Direct Perception Of Animal Mind, Paul Morris Jan 2017

Direct Perception Of Animal Mind, Paul Morris

Animal Sentience

Kujala’s (2017) target article is ostensibly focused on how everyday folk (fail to) make sense of canine emotions. However, the theories outlined in the article apply to making sense of all aspects of the mentality of both human and non-human animals. The target article neglects the fundamental arguments surrounding the problem of other minds. I explore the relevant arguments and briefly review approaches suggesting that our everyday-life sense that both human and non-human animals are thinking, feeling, emotional beings has a secure epistemological basis.


Animal And Human Emotion: Concepts And Methodologies, Cátia Correia Caeiro Jan 2017

Animal And Human Emotion: Concepts And Methodologies, Cátia Correia Caeiro

Animal Sentience

The human-dog relationship is particularly interesting for the study of emotions. The underlying concepts need to be made explicit and methods need to be adapted to the characteristics of the species studied as well as the shortcomings of the human experimenter’s perception.


Battlefish Contention, Sean Allen-Hermanson Jan 2017

Battlefish Contention, Sean Allen-Hermanson

Animal Sentience

Contrary to Woodruff’s suggestion, investigations into possible reasoning capacities of cichlid fighting fish and trace memory in goldfish do not support claims about sentience. This is disputed by research results about learning and implicit processing, sleep, vegetative states, amnesia, semantic priming, artificial network modeling, and even insects. A novel, deflationary, interpretation of Grosenick et al.'s experiments on A. burtoni is also offered.


Neutral And Adaptive Genetic Variation In North American Hardwood Tree Species, Sudhir Khodwekar Jan 2017

Neutral And Adaptive Genetic Variation In North American Hardwood Tree Species, Sudhir Khodwekar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

'Northern Hardwoods,’ are a characteristic composition of multiple tree species and a part of the rich and diverse northeastern forests. Hardwoods e.g. oaks (Quercus: Fagaceae and Sugar maple), serve as foundation species and offer ecological and economical gains to wildlife and humans. Most of the forest trees go through many biotic and abiotic stresses, for example climate change in their long life span. To overcome these threats and to adapt to changing conditions, tree species need to maintain variation especially in adaptive genes. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze genetic diversity within forest tree populations and take appropriate …