Cognition and Perception Commons^™

What Does Sentience Mean At The Neural Level?, Björn Brembs

Animal Sentience

Jonathan Birch's (2025) LSE criteria for sentience include motivational trade-offs, exemplified by C. elegansweighing hunger against desiccation risk. Yet once the neural circuit is known, this "trade-off" reduces to a single inhibitory synapse—an ‘elemental’ account discrediting the ‘molar’ one. My commentary illustrates the same discrepancy in Drosophila: dopaminergic ramping during courtship as it progressively suppresses threat-detecting neurons; so persistence past danger reflects recalibrated valuation rather than a weighed decision. As neurobiology increasingly discovers such discrepancies, all criteria resting on behavioral classifications risk being defined away without altering the behavior's validity.

Natural Behavior Vs. Subjective Experience In Fish Welfare Assessments, Ronald G. Oldfield

Animal Sentience

Several commentaries on the Oldfield & Bonano (2024) target article proposed that natural behavior should play a larger role in assessing the welfare of fishes in zoos and aquariums. However, the natural-behavior concept of animal welfare has been widely criticized because natural behaviors do not necessarily improve welfare, and unnatural behaviors do not necessarily reduce it. I review the three major concepts of animal welfare — physical health, natural behavior, and affect/feelings — and argue that behavior patterns, whether natural or otherwise, should be evaluated according to their effects on health and subjective experience. Using the affect/feelings concept and the …

Practical Considerations For Conducting Canine Behavioral Science, Lucrezia Lonardo, Madeline H. Pelgrim, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Research on behavior in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) has increased rapidly recently due to the interest in them as pets, working dogs, and model species for understanding evolution, domestication, and even human health. This interest in canine behavioral science has resulted in the creation of dozens of dog lab worldwide, with more starting every year. Our aim here is to review practical issues that potential dog researchers might consider when deciding how to set up a dog lab and conduct research in canine behavioral science. We hope that this can offer a path forward in promoting high-quality, cutting-edge …

Tuning Human And “Artificial” Intelligence: A Sentic Theory Of Resonance And Communication, Michael J. Miller, Chatgpt (Ai~Nesbo+)

Psychology

This paper introduces a new model of intelligence as resonant communication, co-developed by a human researcher and a generative AI system. Drawing from emotion science, communication theory, and studies of AI–human interaction, we argue that intelligence is not merely a function of problem-solving or pattern recognition. Instead, it emerges through dynamic resonance—an attunement process rooted in shared rhythms, emotional calibration, and symbolic co-creation. At the core of this model is the Resonance Octave (8va), a framework of eight foundational emotions conceptualized not as static categories but as waveform phenomena that shape meaning, memory, and predictive cognition.

These emotional waveforms are …

The Consciousness Inherent In Chasing Your Tail, Sergio M. Pellis Dr.

Animal Sentience

Who is conscious and how do we know? Complexity in behavior and cognition is certainly a clue that cannot be ignored in identifying this trait, and as Mather’s target article shows, it is hard not to imagine consciousness arising in cephalopods. But how complex is complex? An alternative may be gleaned from the fact that all living things rely on negative feedback to navigate their worlds, and this requires all sentient beings knowing what is to be stabilized in reflection to themselves. If so, consciousness is a universal trait.

Field Journal: The Excluded Middle, Carrie E. Kouts

Masters Theses

What does it look like to engage with organisms and landscapes at the periphery of anthropocentric value structures? How does one break the internalized myth that the “built” environment is excluded from the natural world? When does a hyper-mobile and hyper-commodified society confront the exponential crisis of animal death? Within this series of journal entries, field notes, collection observations, weird prose, and sensory musings, one will find questions on the nature of being human and the complex narratives of care we encounter in a world shared with more-than-humans. Each handwritten vignette and photograph from daily life weaves a non-linear and …

Précis Of The Edge Of Sentience: Risk And Precaution In Humans, Other Animals, And Ai, Jonathan Birch

Animal Sentience

We often face grave practical decisions that seem to hinge on whether a system is sentient. This family of cases includes invertebrate animals, people who are unresponsive after brain injury, fetuses, neural organoids, and now AI technologies. We must decide what to do despite ongoing disagreement about the nature of sentience. In our state of uncertainty, we should pragmatically transform the question from “Is it sentient?” to “Is it a sentience candidate, an investigation priority, or neither?”. When a system is a sentience candidate, it is negligent to fail to consider precautions. We should instead evaluate precautions for their proportionality …

Social Learning And Cultural Enrichment For Fish Welfare, Chiawen Chiang, Becca Franks

Animal Sentience

This commentary examines how understanding animal culture—shared behaviors and knowledge transmitted through social learning—plays a role in advancing welfare practices for captive fishes. Despite extensive evidence of fishes' complex sociocultural capacities, their psycho-social needs remain underestimated and unmet in zoos and aquaria. We explore what considering fish culture might mean for welfare practices: diverse social learning opportunities, cultural development, and thoughtful group management. More knowledge about wild fishes' lives will help bridge the gap between their full, complex lives and current captive welfare practices.

Species Vary In Within-Species Variability, Jennifer Vonk

Animal Sentience

Owens et al. (2024) add to the growing voices stressing the importance of considering individual differences in animal welfare and conservation. I advocate for an additional emphasis on the importance of between species comparisons of the degree of individual variation in cognition and emotion within species. A better understanding of the factors predicting within-species variability will help conservationists target their efforts. Additionally, I caution against invoking circularity in using “behavioural traits” to predict related behaviours.

Impact Of Equine Interaction During Psychotherapy On Anxiety And Depression For Residential Treatment Program Patients Experiencing Substance Withdrawal, Molly M. Friend, Molly C. Nicodemus, Clay Cavinder, Caleb Lemley, Pauline Prince, Katherine A. Cagle-Holtcamp, Rebecca M. Swanson

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

As incidences of substance use disorders (SUD) increase in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need for more effective treatment approaches. Further, treatment approaches currently available struggle to retain patients during the period of substance withdrawal in early treatment due to patients’ withdrawal symptoms including increased feelings of anxiety and depression. Withdrawal symptoms have been linked to dysregulated cortisol concentrations present in this period. Psychotherapy incorporating equine interaction (PIE) has emerged in other populations as a treatment that decreases cortisol concentrations and improves treatment retention. The present study investigated the impact of 4 weeks of PIE on …

Plant Sentience: A Hypothesis Based On Shaky Premises, Carel Ten Cate

Animal Sentience

Plants may produce fascinating behavioural phenomena for which the label ‘cognitive process’ may be applicable, at least by some definitions. Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (2023) base their hypothesis that plants might be sentient on the premise of demonstrated presence of cognitive complexity. However, the way phenomena are ascribed, and how the term ‘cognitive’ is used by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo, deviates from the common practice in studies of animal cognition, implying greater complexity than seems justified. It thus provides a questionable basis for attributing sentience to plants.

Questions About Sentience Are Not Scientific But Cultural, Yoram Gutfreund

Animal Sentience

Abstract: The findings of complex cognitive-like behaviours in plants are surprising and exciting. However, they do not provide a scientific reason for ascribing sentience to plants. The target article, in trying to provide evidence for sentience in plants, exposes the weakness of the science of animal consciousness in general. In this commentary, I try to explain why the scientific method is incapable of resolving the question of which organisms or systems are sentient.

Insentient “Cognition”?, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

A sentient state is a state that it feels like something to be in. Cows have them, cars don’t. Cognitive capacities are a subset of behavioral capacities. Not all behavioral capacities are cognitive (but the distinction is fuzzy). Might the difference have something to do with whether the behaver is sentient?

Effects Of Social Context On Salivary Cortisol And Attention In Tufted Capuchins (Cebus [Sapajus] Apella), Andrew Desana

Master’s Theses

Social context alters cognitive performance, but the mechanisms for this remain unclear. One possibility is that stressors associated with social contexts mediate changes in cognitive performance by influencing attention. We conducted two experiments to investigate how social context affects performance on an attention task in capuchin monkeys (Cebus [Sapajus] apella). We additionally validated and measured physiological stress through salivary cortisol. In experiment one, capuchins were exposed to three conditions where they were either isolated or paired with an affiliative or agonistic social partner separated by a barrier. In experiment two, subjects received affiliative and agonistic conditions without barriers to allow …

Understanding Across The Senses: Cross-Modal Studies Of Cognition In Cetaceans, Jason N. Bruck, Adam A. Pack

Faculty Publications

Cross-modal approaches to the study of sensory perception, social recognition, cognition, and mental representation have proved fruitful in humans as well as in a variety of other species including toothed whales in revealing equivalencies that suggest that different sensory stimuli associated with objects or individuals may effectively evoke mental representations that are, respectively, object based or individual based. Building on established findings of structural equivalence in the form of spontaneous recognition of complex shapes across the modalities of echolocation and vision and behavior favoring identity echoic–visual cross-modal relationships over associative echoic–visual cross-modal relationships, examinations of transitive inference equivalencies from initially …

Free Will And Animal Suicide, Sabina Schrynemakers

Animal Sentience

David Peña-Guzmán presents two arguments against the view that because only humans have free will only humans can commit suicide: (1) nonhuman animals may possess free will, and (2) the libertarian notion of free will is incompatible with scientific explanation. The free will objection to animal suicide is indeed mistaken, but Peña-Guzmán’s criticism of the libertarian notion of free will seems misplaced. His target should instead be the assumption that free choices must be made consciously or self-reflectively or the assumption that freedom cannot come in degrees.

Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg

Animal Sentience

On the basis of the target article by Crump and colleagues, we suggest a more parsimonious scheme for evaluating the evidence for sentience. Since some of the criteria used by Crump et al. are not independent and some are uninformative we exclude some criteria and amalgamate others. We propose that evidence of flexible learning and prioritization, in conjunction with relevant data on brain organization, is sufficient for assigning pain-sentience to an animal and we suggest a scoring scheme based on four criteria.

Truly Minimal Criteria For Animal Sentience, Mark Solms

Animal Sentience

The criteria for determining animal sentience proposed in the target article are sensible but they lack an explicit functional justification for the focus on pain. This commentary provides an abbreviated account of the most basic functional principles that underpin animal sentience and articulates some minimal criteria for determining its presence.

Does The Sentience Framework Imply All Animals Are Sentient?, Kristin Andrews

Animal Sentience

The eight criteria proposed in Crump et al.’s framework for evaluating pain sentience in decapod crustaceans are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to markers that could increase confidence in an animal’s sentience more generally. Some of the commentaries have already pointed out that pain is only one kind of sentience (Souza Valente). It has also already been pointed out that there are other criteria for pain that could be usefully added to the framework’s eight (Burrell). This expansive thinking about criteria that can be used to increase confidence in sentience raisess the question: in an expansive …

Distinguishing Epistemic And Moral Grounds For Legal Protection, Carlos Montemayor

Animal Sentience

The criteria proposed by Crump et al. are based on various cognitive roles associated with sentience. A subset of them may be sufficient for certain kinds of welfare, but the presence of all of them should be considered as clearly sufficient for substantial kinds of legal protection based on their relation to capacities that we consider essential for moral standing in human beings.

Sentience As Part Of Emotional Lives, Frans B. M. De Waal

Animal Sentience

It is high time to explore the sentience of invertebrate animals, but this topic cannot be discussed without also exploring their emotional lives, including positive emotions. Sentience probably evolved to allow the regulation of emotions by endowing them with feelings.

Pros And Cons Of A Framework For Evaluating Potential Pain In Decapods, Robert W. Elwood

Animal Sentience

The rigorous framework for research into potential pain in decapods was successful in allowing legislators in the United Kingdom to evaluate a complex scientific issue. However, it might produce problems for research. I discuss doubts about the usefulness of the eight criteria. Some have yet to receive any investigation and others do not allow much inference about pain. In addition, some existing studies are not covered in the framework. Most worrying, however, is the potential for stifling future research of novel areas that are excluded from the framework.

Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff

Animal Sentience

Rowan et al.’s target article is an outstanding review of some of the history of the science of sentience, but one would have liked to see a much stronger “call to action.” We don’t need any more data to know that many other animals are sentient beings whose lives must be protected from harm in a wide variety of contexts. It is not anti-science to want more action on behalf of other animals right now.

Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch

Animal Sentience

We outline a framework for evaluating scientific evidence of sentience, focusing on pain experience. It includes eight neural and cognitive-behavioural criteria, with confidence levels for each criterion reflecting the reliability and quality of the evidence. We outline the rationale for each criterion and apply our framework to a controversial sentience candidate: decapod crustaceans. We have either high or very high confidence that true crabs (infraorder Brachyura) satisfy five criteria, amounting to strong evidence of sentience. Moreover, we have high confidence that both anomuran crabs (infraorder Anomura) and astacid lobsters/crayfish (infraorder Astacidea) meet three criteria—substantial evidence of sentience. The case is, …

Legal Recognition Of Animal Sentience: The Case For Cautious Optimism, Jane Kotzmann

Animal Sentience

Rowan et al.’s target article provides a valuable indication of the work that was required to reach the point where animals are recognised as sentient in various laws. To ensure this work was not in vain, the language of sentience needs to be used as a moral currency to demand further cultural change involving greater human respect for animals.

Revisiting Donald Griffin, Founder Of Cognitive Ethology, Carolyn A. Ristau

Animal Sentience

Donald Griffin’s writings, beginning with The Question of Animal Awareness (1976), strove to persuade scientists to study the possibility of animal sentience, the basis of Rowan et al.’s efforts to promote animal well-being. Facing great hostility (but also some acceptance) for his ideas, Griffin initially avoided animal welfare advocacy, fearing it would further undermine his efforts to gain recognition of animal sentience. In later years, however, he began to ponder the ethical implications of animal sentience, intending to study wild elephants’ communication and social behavior to better understand their experienced life and apply it to improving conservation methods. As he …

Sentience Politics : A Fishy Perspective, Culum Brown

Animal Sentience

The plight of fishes has almost certainly got worse since Bentham (1789) coined the phrase “The question is not Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but Can they suffer?” Despite the fact that fishes are increasingly recognised as sentient animals worthy of protection under animal welfare legislation in many countries around the world, fishing practices are almost universally exempt activities. The human population continues to grow, and, surprisingly, per capita intake of fish is still increasing (FAO 2020). The source of this fish is not wild stocks (catches of which have remained more or less stagnant for …

All Living Organisms Are Sentient, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.

Animal Sentience

We argue that all living organisms, from the simplest unicellular prokaryotes to Homo sapiens, have valenced experiences—feelings as states of preference—and are capable of cognitive representations. Bacteria can learn, form stable memories, and communicate, hence solve problems. Rowan et al.'s statement that "Subjective feelings are just that — subjective — and are available only to the animal (or human) experiencing them" is true but irrelevant. When we see a fish flopping about in the bottom of a boat we immediately recognize suffering without having a glimpse of the nature of piscine distress. Some controlled anthropomorphism can go a …

The Science Of Animal Sentience And The Politics Of Animal Welfare Should Be Kept Separate, Marian Stamp Dawkins

Animal Sentience

Although linked historically by Rowan et al., the scientific study of animal sentience and political campaigns to improve animal welfare should be kept separate, for at least two reasons. First, the separation makes it clear that standards of evidence acceptable for ethical or political decisions on animal welfare can be lower than those required for a rigorously scientific approach to animal sentience. Second, it helps to avoid confirmatory bias in the form of giving undue weight to results that are in line with pre-conceived ideas and political views.

The Reality And Prevalence Of Animal Sentience, Antonio Damasio

Animal Sentience

Rowan et al use findings from neurobiology, clinical neurology, and general biology to argue for the extensive presence of sentience in animals, but they are wisely cautious concerning when in the phylogenetic scale that emergence occurred.