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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Jealousy? Or Just Hostility Toward Other Dogs? The Risks Of Jumping To Conclusions, James A. Serpell Jan 2018

Jealousy? Or Just Hostility Toward Other Dogs? The Risks Of Jumping To Conclusions, James A. Serpell

Animal Sentience

Cook et al. (2018) provide a fascinating demonstration of amygdala activation in dogs when they witnessed their owners giving food to another (fake) dog, but not when they placed food in a bucket. Dogs’ neurological responses were positively correlated with their reported levels of ‘dog-directed aggression’ as measured by the C-BARQ, and dogs with initially strong amygdala responses habituated on subsequent trials. The authors interpret their findings as possible evidence for an emotion akin to jealousy in dogs. However, alternate interpretations involving either dog aggression/fear or emotional responses to food seem more plausible and avoid the welfare risks associated with …


Displaying Jealous Behavior Versus Experiencing Jealousy, Judit Abdai, Ádám Miklósi Jan 2018

Displaying Jealous Behavior Versus Experiencing Jealousy, Judit Abdai, Ádám Miklósi

Animal Sentience

Jealous behavior is the manifestation of complex behavioral interactions initiated by an individual who aims to maintain an important social relationship that is threatened by a rival. Researchers prefer to focus on the emotion thought to control this behavior, “jealousy,” before understanding the mechanisms of the behavior. Researchers conducting recent behavioral studies on jealous behavior in dogs are still struggling to find strong experimental evidence. Thus, the positive correlation between amygdala activation and reported aggression in dogs described in Cook et al.’s target article is far from constituting evidence for “jealousy” in dogs.


Chickens Play To The Crowd, Cinzia Chiandetti Jan 2018

Chickens Play To The Crowd, Cinzia Chiandetti

Animal Sentience

The time was ripe for Marino’s review of chickens’ cognitive capacities. The research community, apart from expressing gratitude for Marino’s work, should now use it to increase public awareness of chickens’ abilities. People’s views on many animals are ill-informed. Scientists need to communicate and engage with the public about the relevance and societal implications of their findings.


Why Humans Are Different, Tara Fox Hall Jan 2018

Why Humans Are Different, Tara Fox Hall

Animal Sentience

A central human problem is our inference from the fact that we are the world’s most intelligent species to the alleged fact that we are superior. This inference is not mandatory. Successfully combating this inference may require the threat of a large-scale catastrophe to our species.


Sentience In Fishes: More On The Evidence, Michael L. Woodruff Jan 2018

Sentience In Fishes: More On The Evidence, Michael L. Woodruff

Animal Sentience

In my target article, I argued that the brains of ray-finned fishes of the teleost subclass (Actinopterygii) are sufficiently complex to support sentience — that these fishes have subjective awareness of interoceptive and exteroceptive sense experience. Extending previous theories centered on the tectum, I focused on the organization of the fish pallium. In this Response to the commentaries, I clarify that I do not propose that the fish pallium is, or must be, homologous to the mammalian neocortex to play a role in sentience. Some form of a functionalist approach to explaining the neural basis of sentience across taxa is …