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Full-Text Articles in Psychology

Pain In Fish: Weighing The Evidence, James D. Rose Jan 2016

Pain In Fish: Weighing The Evidence, James D. Rose

Animal Sentience

The target article by Key (2016) examines whether fish have brain structures capable of mediating pain perception and consciousness, functions known to depend on the neocortex in humans. He concludes, as others have concluded (Rose 2002, 2007; Rose et al. 2014), that such functions are impossible for fish brains. This conclusion has been met with hypothetical assertions by others to the effect that functions of pain and consciousness may well be possible through unknown alternate neural processes. Key's argument would be bolstered by consideration of other neurological as well as behavioral evidence, which shows that sharks and ray are fishes …


Nonverbal Indicators Of Pain, Simon Van Rysewyk Jan 2016

Nonverbal Indicators Of Pain, Simon Van Rysewyk

Animal Sentience

In discussing fish pain, Key (2016) privileges pain in humans — “the only species able to directly report on its feelings.” Human experience of pain is not necessarily best reflected by verbal self-report, however. Neural responses to noxious stimuli are influenced by individual differences and by context. Nonverbal pain displays such as facial expressions reflect part of the neural response to noxious stimuli. Most mammals have a specific facial grimace reflecting pain. If fish have a somatic expression of pain, the development of a reliable and accurate somatic pain scale specific to fish could make a contribution to the debate …


Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach Jan 2016

Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) affirms that we do not know how the fish brain processes pain but denies — because fish lack a human-like cortex — that fish can feel pain. He affirms that birds, like fish, have a singly-laminated cortex and that the structure of the bird brain is quite different from that of the human brain, yet he does not deny that birds can feel pain. In this commentary we describe how Key cites studies that substantiate mammalian pain but discounts the same kind of data as evidence of fish pain. We suggest that Key's interpretations are illogical, do not …


Going Beyond Just-So Stories, Brian Key Jan 2016

Going Beyond Just-So Stories, Brian Key

Animal Sentience

Colloquial arguments for fish feeling pain are deeply rooted in anthropometric tendencies that confuse escape responses to noxious stimuli with evidence for consciousness. More developed arguments often rely on just-so stories of fish displaying complex behaviours as proof of consciousness. In response to commentaries on the idea that fish do not feel pain, I raise the need to go beyond just-so stories and to rigorously analyse the neural circuitry responsible for specific behaviours using new and emerging technologies in neuroscience. By deciphering the causal relationship between neural information processing and conscious behaviour, it should be possible to assess cogently the …


Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key Jan 2016

Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key

Animal Sentience

The reader of Animal Sentience may surmise that because the weight of the commentaries on my target article, “Why fish do not feel pain,” is leaning towards not supporting my argument, it follows that the premise "fish do not feel pain" is incorrect. However, science does not prevail by popular opinion. History is plagued with numerous (and often widely accepted) examples of biological phenomena being explained by mysterious forces. In the absence of a mechanistic understanding, the many different guises of vitalism (the principle that life involves a vital energy) are often invoked to explain the unknown. Spurious …


Devaluation As A Strategy To Address Behaviourally Whether Fish Feel, Robert Ian Bowers Jan 2016

Devaluation As A Strategy To Address Behaviourally Whether Fish Feel, Robert Ian Bowers

Animal Sentience

Failures of behavioural studies to address the question of whether fish feel pain have left scientists arguing on the basis of other criteria, including anatomy. I draw an analogy with a debate concerning the breadth of stimulus-response learning among nonhuman animals and propose an experiment that harks back to one solution to that debate: the devaluation paradigm. By changing the value of a noxious stimulus after training, one can differentiate a directly evoked response from a response to an intermediate representation, the pain.


An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather Jan 2016

An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather

Animal Sentience

Although Key (2016) argues that mammals feel pain and fish do not, from an invertebrate perspective, it is obvious that the pain experience is shared by animals from a number of different animal groups.


Sentience And Animal Welfare: New Thoughts And Controversies, Donald M. Broom Jan 2016

Sentience And Animal Welfare: New Thoughts And Controversies, Donald M. Broom

Animal Sentience

Sentience involves having some degree of awareness but awareness of self is not as complex as some people believe. Fully functioning vertebrate animals, and some invertebrates, are sentient but neither humans nor non-humans are sentient early in development or if brain-damaged. Feelings are valuable adaptive mechanisms and an important part of welfare but are not all of welfare so the term welfare refers to all animals, not just to sentient animals. We have much to learn about what non-human animals want from us, the functioning of the more complex aspects of their brains and of our brains and how we …


Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver Jan 2016

Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver

Animal Sentience

Certain cortical regions are necessary for pain in humans in the sense that, at particular times, they play a direct role in pain. However, it is not true that they are necessary in the more important sense that pain is never possible in humans without them. There are additional details from human lesion studies concerning functional plasticity that undermine Key’s (2016) interpretation. Moreover, no one has yet identified any specific behaviors that mammalian cortical pain regions make possible that are absent in fish.


Why Is Fish “Feeling” Pain Controversial?, E. Don Stevens Jan 2016

Why Is Fish “Feeling” Pain Controversial?, E. Don Stevens

Animal Sentience

In his excellent target article, Key (2016) develops a mechanistic argument in an attempt to show why it is unlikely that fish can “feel” pain or for that matter, “feel” anything. The topic is controversial and likely to achieve the goal of getting many hits for the inaugural issue of the new journal, Animal Sentience. In my view, the question is unlikely to be answered, for two reasons. First, because the proponents of the “fish feel pain” controversy are untrained and unskilled in the details and jargon of neurophysiology and/or neuroanatomy, and the opponents of the controversy, like Key, …


Fish Pain: A Painful Topic, Carl Safina Jan 2016

Fish Pain: A Painful Topic, Carl Safina

Animal Sentience

If fish cannot feel pain, why do stingrays have purely defensive tail spines that deliver venom? Stingrays’ ancestral predators are fish. And why do many fishes possess defensive fin spines, some also with venom that produces pain in humans? These things did not evolve just in case sentient humans would evolve millions of years later and then invent scuba. If fish react purely unconsciously to “noxious” stimuli, why aren’t sharp jabbing spines enough? Why also stinging venom?


How Welfare Biology And Commonsense May Help To Reduce Animal Suffering, Yew-Kwang Ng Jan 2016

How Welfare Biology And Commonsense May Help To Reduce Animal Suffering, Yew-Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

Welfare biology is the study of the welfare of living things. Welfare is net happiness (enjoyment minus suffering). Since this necessarily involves feelings, Dawkins (2014) has suggested that animal welfare science may face a paradox, because feelings are very difficult to study. The following paper provides an explanation for how welfare biology could help to reduce this paradox by answering some difficult questions regarding animal welfare. Simple means based on commonsense could reduce animal suffering enormously at low or even negative costs to humans. Ways to increase the influence of animal welfare advocates are also discussed, focusing initially on farmed …


Is Sentience Only A Nonessential Component Of Animal Welfare?, Ian J.H. Duncan Jan 2016

Is Sentience Only A Nonessential Component Of Animal Welfare?, Ian J.H. Duncan

Animal Sentience

According to Broom (2014), animal welfare is a concept that can be applied to all animals, including single-celled organisms that are obviously not sentient. Such a stance makes it difficult to draw a connection between welfare and sentience, and that is the book’s downfall. Some excellent points are made about sentience and there are very good discussions on animal welfare. However, unless sentience is considered the essential component of welfare, any attempt to link the two phenomena will be unsuccessful — and that, indeed, is the case with this book.


Why Animal Welfarism Continues To Fail, Lori Marino Jan 2016

Why Animal Welfarism Continues To Fail, Lori Marino

Animal Sentience

Welfarism prioritizes human interests over the needs of nonhuman animals. Despite decades of welfare efforts other animals are mostly worse off than ever before, being subjected to increasingly invasive and harmful treatments, especially in the factory farming and biomedical research areas. A legal rights-based approach is essential in order for other animals to be protected from the varying ethical whims of our species.