What Would We Like To Know By Imaging The Brains Of Dogs?,
2018
California Institute of Technology
What Would We Like To Know By Imaging The Brains Of Dogs?, Ralph Adolphs
Animal Sentience
Using fMRI to study emotions in animals is important, fascinating, and fraught with methodological and conceptual problems. Cook et al. are doing it, and there is no question that they and others will be doing it better and better as time goes on. Where will this lead us? What could fMRI in principle tell us about the minds of nonhuman animals?
What Is It Like To Be A Jealous Dog?,
2018
Universita degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Fisiopatologia Medico-Chirurgica e dei Trapianti
What Is It Like To Be A Jealous Dog?, Emanuela Prato Previde, Paola Valsecchi
Animal Sentience
Jealousy is a good candidate for comparative studies due to its clear adaptive value in protecting social bonds and affective relationships. Dogs are suitable subjects for investigating the evolution of jealousy, thanks to their rather sophisticated socio-cognitive abilities — which in some cases parallel those reported for human infants — and thanks to their long-lasting relationship with humans. The work of Cook and colleagues (2018) addresses the issue of jealousy in dogs through the lens of neuroscience, examining the relationship between the amygdala and jealousy. Their experiment has a number of methodological flaws that prevent distinguishing jealousy from other internal …
Dogs Aren’T Jealous – They Are Just Asking For Accurate Information,
2018
University of Pennsylvania
Dogs Aren’T Jealous – They Are Just Asking For Accurate Information, Karen L. Overall
Animal Sentience
Awake fMRI offers us a unique opportunity to view and understand how dogs see the world and use the information in it. Given the limitations of behavioral assays and the small sample sizes inherent in these studies, labeling of patterns of canine behaviors using pop psychology terms may actually interfere with our understanding of canine brains and obscure for us a more parsimonious but exciting interpretation of canine behavior. We should use this window into how dogs think wisely.
Only The Human Brain Has The Cognitive Capacity For Jealousy,
2018
University of Pisa
Only The Human Brain Has The Cognitive Capacity For Jealousy, Donatella Marazziti
Animal Sentience
Jealousy is exclusively a human phenomenon because nonhuman animals lack the brain structures regulating the higher processes underlying jealousy.
Fill-In-The-Blank-Emotion In Dogs? Evidence From Brain Imaging,
2018
Barnard College
Fill-In-The-Blank-Emotion In Dogs? Evidence From Brain Imaging, Alexandra Horowitz, Becca Franks, Jeff Sebo
Animal Sentience
What is needed to make meaningful claims about an animal’s capacity for subjective experience? Cook et al. (2018) attempt to study jealousy in dogs by placing them in a particular context and then seeing whether they display a particular brain state. We argue that this approach to studying jealousy falls short for two related reasons. First, the relationship between jealousy and the selected context is unclear. Second, the relationship between jealousy and the selected brain state (indeed, any single brain state) is unclear. These and other issues seriously limit what this study can show. It is important not to see …
Situating The Study Of Jealousy In The Context Of Social Relationships,
2018
Emory University
Situating The Study Of Jealousy In The Context Of Social Relationships, Christine E. Webb, Frans B. M. De Waal
Animal Sentience
Whereas the feelings of other beings are private and may always remain so, emotions are simultaneously manifested in behavior, physiology, and other observables. Nonetheless, uncertainty about whether emotions can be studied adequately across species has promoted skepticism about their very presence in other parts of the animal kingdom. Studying social emotions like jealousy in the context of the social relationships in which they arise, as has been done in the case of animal empathy, may help dispel this skepticism. Empathy in other species came to be accepted partly because of the behavioral similarities between its expression in nonhuman animals and …
The Degeneracy Of Behavior And The Rise Of Neuroimaging To Measure Affective States In Dogs,
2018
New College of Florida
The Degeneracy Of Behavior And The Rise Of Neuroimaging To Measure Affective States In Dogs, Peter F. Cook, Gregory S. Berns
Animal Sentience
It is gratifying and significant that so many scientists from diverse fields are arguing in-depth regarding a particularly complex set of social emotions in a non-human animal. Emotions play a fundamental role in decision making and information processing. Neuroimaging is important in understanding the cognitive and emotional worlds of non-human animals and can help measure covert emotions lacking clear behavioral correlates. Various experimental approaches could clarify the relative importance of attachment and aggression in jealousy and whether the phenomenon we measured is more akin to human envy or jealousy. Reverse inference from amygdala activation is probably justified because behavior is …
Fake Or Not: Two Prerequisites For Jealousy,
2018
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Fake Or Not: Two Prerequisites For Jealousy, Juliane Bräuer, Federica Amici
Animal Sentience
Cook and colleagues (2018) use a novel approach to test jealousy in dogs. Although such a non-invasive approach is more than welcome in comparative research, several methodological shortcomings limit the impact of this study. We briefly outline two main problems. (1) There is no evidence that the fake dogs in the study were perceived as real, and thus as social rivals, which would be a prerequisite for jealousy. (2) It is questionable whether dogs generally show the cognitive prerequisites for jealousy, such as attentiveness toward a social rival, the ability to understand intentions, and a sense of fairness. We suggest …
Fish Sentience Denial: Muddying The Waters,
2018
University of Liverpool
Fish Sentience Denial: Muddying The Waters, Lynne U. Sneddon, Javier Lopez-Luna, David C.C. Wolfenden, Matthew C. Leach, Ana M. Valentim, Peter J. Steenbergen, Nabila Bardine, Amanda D. Currie, Donald M. Broom, Culum Brown
Animal Sentience
Recent empirical studies have reported evidence that many aquatic species, including fish, cephalopods and crustaceans, have the capacity for nociception and pain, and that their welfare should be taken into consideration. Some sceptics, rejecting the precautionary principle, have denied that any study demonstrates pain or other aspects of sentience in fish. This target article discusses some of the scientific shortcomings of these critiques through a detailed analysis of a study exploring nociception and analgesia in larval zebrafish.
Pain In Fish: Evidence From Peripheral Nociceptors To Pallial Processing,
2018
East Tennessee State University
Pain In Fish: Evidence From Peripheral Nociceptors To Pallial Processing, Michael L. Woodruff
Animal Sentience
The target article by Sneddon et al. (2018) presents convincing behavioral and pharmacological evidence that ray-finned fish consciously perceive noxious stimuli as painful. One objection to this interpretation of the evidence is that the fish nervous system is not complex enough to support the conscious experience of pain. Data that contradict this objection are presented in this commentary. The neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the fish nervous system from the peripheral nerves to the pallium is able to support the sentient appreciation of pain.
Sentience, The Final Frontier....,
2018
Dalhousie University
Sentience, The Final Frontier...., Shelley Adamo
Animal Sentience
Arguments for fish sentience have difficulty with the philosophical zombie problem. Progress in AI has shown that complex learning, pain behavior, and pain as a motivational drive can be emulated by robots without any internal subjective experience. Therefore, demonstrating these abilities in fish does not necessarily demonstrate that fish are sentient. Further evidence for fish sentience may come from optogenetic studies of neural networks in zebrafish. Such studies may show that zebrafish have neural network patterns similar to those that correlate with sentience in humans. Given the present uncertainty regarding sentience in fish, caution should be applied regarding the precautionary …
Fish Sentience, Consciousness, And Ai,
2018
independent ethologist
Fish Sentience, Consciousness, And Ai, Ila France Porcher
Animal Sentience
The systematic criticism of articles providing evidence that fish and invertebrates can feel pain is discussed. Beliefs are known to be stronger than evidence in the human mind, and could generate this outcry, while from another perspective, the criticisms appear as a territorial move by fishermen against a perceived threat to their domain. The scientific inconsistency in which consciousness is granted to machines but not to fish and invertebrates, purely due to political bias, is pointed out. No basis exists for denying sentience to any life form as long as science is ignorant of the nature and source of consciousness.
Fish Sentience Denial: Muddy Moral Water,
2018
California State University - Chico
Fish Sentience Denial: Muddy Moral Water, Robert C. Jones
Animal Sentience
Sneddon et al. (2018) authoritatively summarize the compelling and overwhelming evidence for fish sentience, while methodically dismantling one rather emblematic research paper (Diggles et al. 2017) intended to discount solid evidence of fish sentience (Lopez-Luna et al. 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, & 2017d). I explore the larger practical moral contexts within which these debates take place and argue that denials of animal sentience are really moral canards.
Fish And Plant Sentience: Anesthetized Plants And Fishes Cannot Respond To Stimuli,
2018
Utsunomiya University
Fish And Plant Sentience: Anesthetized Plants And Fishes Cannot Respond To Stimuli, Ken Yokawa, František Baluška
Animal Sentience
Recent denial of fish sentience is at variance with the fact that all living organisms need environmental awareness in order to survive in a continuously fluctuating environment. Moreover, fish sentience – like plant sentience – is also strongly supported by the sensitivity of fishes and plants to diverse anesthetics.
If It Looks Like A Duck: Fish Fit The Criteria For Pain Perception,
2018
Ripon College
If It Looks Like A Duck: Fish Fit The Criteria For Pain Perception, Julia E. Meyers-Manor
Animal Sentience
Whereas we have denied the experience of pain to animals, including human babies, the evidence is becoming clearer that animals across a variety of species have the capacity to feel pain (Bellieni, 2012). As converging findings are collected from pain studies and the study of cognition, it is becoming harder to deny that fish are among the species that do feel pain.
Defining Denial And Sentient Seafood,
2018
New York University
Defining Denial And Sentient Seafood, Jennifer Jacquet
Animal Sentience
Sneddon et al. address the scientists who reject the empirical evidence on fish sentience, calling them “sceptics” and their work “denial”. This is the first article to frame the question of fish sentience in these terms, and it provides an obvious opening for social science and humanities research in the science of fish sentience. It is also worth asking what practical changes in the lives of fish might arise from the mounting evidence of their sentience. I suggest that the relationship between sentience and our sense of moral obligation is not as clear as we often assume.
Sentience: All Or None Or Matter Of Degree?,
2018
University of Toronto
Sentience: All Or None Or Matter Of Degree?, Loren Martin, Robert Gerlai
Animal Sentience
The question of whether fish feel pain is muddied by anthropomorphic thinking. Comparing biological phenomena in two species should be informed by the criteria for good animal models: face validity, construct validity and predictive validity. Viewed through this lens, we argue that fish do feel pain and may possess some level of sentience. Evolutionary relatedness, hence similarities and differences between species (fish and humans in this case), are not about black vs. white but about shades of grey.
Denialism And Muddying The Water Or Organized Skepticism And Clarity? That Is The Question,
2018
DigsFish Services
Denialism And Muddying The Water Or Organized Skepticism And Clarity? That Is The Question, Ben Diggles, Howard I. Browman
Animal Sentience
The research being commented on here has been criticized and defended in journals. Sneddon et al. (2018) add nothing substantive. We have nothing further to add. Readers are referred to Diggles (2018) and to Browman et al. (2018) for a detailed assessment.
Degrees Of Sentience?,
2018
London School of Economics and Political Science
Degrees Of Sentience?, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
I focus on the possibility of sentience in zebrafish larvae. The evidence here prompts two intuitive reactions that are difficult to reconcile: the reaction that larvae, if sentient, should be protected in some way, and the reaction that larvae, if capable of nociception, should be used as replacements for adults. Both reactions are reasonable, but they can be reconciled only by constructing a framework for assigning degrees of protection in proportion to degrees of sentience.
The Human Nervous System Is Not The Gold Standard For Pain,
2018
IULM University
The Human Nervous System Is Not The Gold Standard For Pain, Riccardo Manzotti
Animal Sentience
The basis of pain could be the causal nexus between one’s phylogenetic/ontogenetic history and one’s behavior. It might turn out that the neural implementation is immaterial to the instantiation of pain. Widely different neural structures may token the same pain-type, and nearly identical neural structures may token different types.
