PSY 4930 Animal Cognition Section 2D10
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Chrysippus's Dog As a Case Study in Non-Linguistic Cognition
Chrysippus’s Dog as a Case Study in Non-Linguistic Cognition Michael Rescorla Abstract: I critique an ancient argument for the possibility of non-linguistic deductive inference. The argument, attributed to Chrysippus, describes a dog whose behavior supposedly reflects disjunctive syllogistic reasoning. Drawing on contemporary robotics, I urge that we can equally well explain the dog’s behavior by citing probabilistic reasoning over cognitive maps. I then critique various experimentally-based arguments from scientific psychology that echo Chrysippus’s anecdotal presentation. §1. Language and thought Do non-linguistic creatures think? Debate over this question tends to calcify into two extreme doctrines. The first, espoused by Descartes, regards language as necessary for cognition. Modern proponents include Brandom (1994, pp. 145-157), Davidson (1984, pp. 155-170), McDowell (1996), and Sellars (1963, pp. 177-189). Cartesians may grant that ascribing cognitive activity to non-linguistic creatures is instrumentally useful, but they regard such ascriptions as strictly speaking false. The second extreme doctrine, espoused by Gassendi, Hume, and Locke, maintains that linguistic and non-linguistic cognition are fundamentally the same. Modern proponents include Fodor (2003), Peacocke (1997), Stalnaker (1984), and many others. Proponents may grant that non- linguistic creatures entertain a narrower range of thoughts than us, but they deny any principled difference in kind.1 2 An intermediate position holds that non-linguistic creatures display cognitive activity of a fundamentally different kind than human thought. Hobbes and Leibniz favored this intermediate position. Modern advocates include Bermudez (2003), Carruthers (2002, 2004), Dummett (1993, pp. 147-149), Malcolm (1972), and Putnam (1992, pp. 28-30). -
Cephalopods and the Evolution of the Mind
Cephalopods and the Evolution of the Mind Peter Godfrey-Smith The Graduate Center City University of New York Pacific Conservation Biology 19 (2013): 4-9. In thinking about the nature of the mind and its evolutionary history, cephalopods – especially octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid – have a special importance. These animals are an independent experiment in the evolution of large and complex nervous systems – in the biological machinery of the mind. They evolved this machinery on a historical lineage distant from our own. Where their minds differ from ours, they show us another way of being a sentient organism. Where we are similar, this is due to the convergence of distinct evolutionary paths. I introduced the topic just now as 'the mind.' This is a contentious term to use. What is it to have a mind? One option is that we are looking for something close to what humans have –– something like reflective and conscious thought. This sets a high bar for having a mind. Another possible view is that whenever organisms adapt to their circumstances in real time by adjusting their behavior, taking in information and acting in response to it, there is some degree of mentality or intelligence there. To say this sets a low bar. It is best not to set bars in either place. Roughly speaking, we are dealing with a matter of degree, though 'degree' is not quite the right term either. The evolution of a mind is the acquisition of a tool-kit for the control of behavior. The tool-kit includes some kind of perception, though different animals have very different ways of taking in information from the world. -
"Higher" Cognition. Animal Sentience
Animal Sentience 2017.030: Vallortigara on Marino on Thinking Chickens Sentience does not require “higher” cognition Commentary on Marino on Thinking Chickens Giorgio Vallortigara Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences University of Trento, Italy Abstract: I agree with Marino (2017a,b) that the cognitive capacities of chickens are likely to be the same as those of many others vertebrates. Also, data collected in the young of this precocial species provide rich information about how much cognition can be pre-wired and predisposed in the brain. However, evidence of advanced cognition — in chickens or any other organism — says little about sentience (i.e., feeling). We do not deny sentience in human beings who, because of cognitive deficits, would be incapable of exhibiting some of the cognitive feats of chickens. Moreover, complex problem solving, such as transitive inference, which has been reported in chickens, can be observed even in the absence of any accompanying conscious experience in humans. Giorgio Vallortigara, professor of Neuroscience at the Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences of the University of Trento, Italy, studies space, number and object cognition, and brain asymmetry in a comparative and evolutionary perspective. The author of more than 250 scientific papers on these topics, he was the recipient of several awards, including the Geoffroy Saint Hilaire Prize for Ethology (France) and a Doctor Rerum Naturalium Honoris Causa for outstanding achievements in the field of psychobiology (Ruhr University, Germany). r.unitn.it/en/cimec/abc In a revealing piece in New Scientist (Lawler, 2015a) and a beautiful book (Lawler, 2015b), science journalist Andrew Lawler discussed the possible consequences for humans of the sudden disappearance of some domesticated species. -
The Cognitive Animal : Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition
Contents Introduction ix 11 Learning and Memory Without a Contributors xvii Brain 77 James W. Grau THE DIVERSITY OF 12 Cognitive Modulation of Sexual COGNITION Behavior 89 Michael Domjan The Inner Life of Earthworms: Darwin's Argument and Us 13 Cognition and Emotion in Concert Implications 3 in Human and Nonhuman Animals 97 Eileen Crist Ruud van den Bos, Bart B. Houx, and Berry M. Spruijt 2 Crotalomorphism: A Metaphor for U nderstanding Anthropomorphism 14 Constructing Animal Cognition 105 by Omission 9 William Timberlake Jesús Rivas and Gordon M. 15 Genetics, Plasticity, and the Burghardt Evolution of Cognitive Processes 115 3 The Cognitive Defender: How Gordon M. Burghardt Ground Squirrels Assess Their 16 Spatial Behavior, Food Storing, and Predators 19 the Modular Mind 123 Donald H. Owings Sara J. Shettleworth 4 Jumping Spider Tricksters: Deceit, 17 Spatial and Social Cognition in Predation, and Cognition 27 Corvids: An Evolutionary Approach 129 Stim Wilcox and Robert Jackson Russell P. Balda and Alan C. 5 The Ungulate Mind 35 Kamil John A. Byers 18 Environmental Complexity, Signal 6 Can Honey Bees Create Cognitive Detection, and the Evolution of Maps? 41 Cognition 135 James L. Gould Peter Godfrey-Smith 7 Raven Consciousness 47 19 Cognition as an Independent Bernd Heinrich Variable: Virtual Ecology 143 Alan C. Kamil and Alan B. Bond 8 Animal Minds, Human Minds 53 Eric Saidel 20 Synthetic Ethology: A New Tool for Investigating Animal Cognition 151 9 Comparative Developmental Bruce MacLennan Evolutionary Psychology and Cognitive Ethology: Contrasting but 21 From Cognition in Animals to Compatible Research Programs 59 Cognition in Superorganisms 157 Sue Taylor Parker Charles E. -
Emily Elizabeth Bray [email protected] [email protected]
Emily Elizabeth Bray www.emilyebray.com [email protected] [email protected] PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE University of Arizona, School of Anthropology, Tucson, AZ and May 2017 – Present Canine Companions for Independence®, Santa Rosa, CA Post-doctoral Research Associate Focus: Longitudinal cognitive and behavioral studies in assistance dogs Supervisors: Dr. Evan MacLean and Dr. Brenda Kennedy EDUCATION University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA May 2017 PhD in Psychology (Concentration in Animal Learning and Behavior) Center for Teaching & Learning Teaching Certificate in College and University Teaching Dissertation: “A longitudinal study of maternal style, young adult temperament and cognition, and program outcome in a population of guide dogs” Advisors: Dr. Robert Seyfarth, Dr. Dorothy Cheney, and Dr. James Serpell University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA May 2013 M.A. in Psychology Thesis: “Dogs as a model system for understanding problem-solving: Exploring the affective and cognitive mechanisms that impact inhibitory control” Advisors: Dr. Robert Seyfarth, Dr. Dorothy Cheney, and Dr. James Serpell Duke University, Durham, NC May 2012 B.A. in Cognitive Psychology and English (summa cum laude), Graduation with Distinction in Psychology Psychology GPA 4.0, Cumulative GPA 3.97 Graduation with Distinction Thesis: “Factors Affecting Inhibitory Control in Dogs” Advisors: Dr. Brian Hare and Dr. Stephen Mitroff University College London, London, UK August 2010 - December 2010 Semester Abroad through Butler University’s Institute for Study Abroad PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS 10. Bray, E.E., Gruen, M.E., Gnanadesikan, G.E., Horschler, D.J., Levy, K. M., Kennedy, B.S., Hare, B.A., & MacLean, E.L. (in press). Dog cognitive development: a longitudinal study across the first two years of life. -
Comparative Evolutionary Approach to Pain Perception in Fishes
Brown, Culum (2016) Comparative evolutionary approach to pain perception in fishes. Animal Sentience 3(5) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1029 This article has appeared in the journal Animal Sentience, a peer-reviewed journal on animal cognition and feeling. It has been made open access, free for all, by WellBeing International and deposited in the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Animal Sentience 2016.011: Brown Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Comparative evolutionary approach to pain perception in fishes Commentary on Key on Fish Pain Culum Brown Biological Sciences Macquarie University Abstract: Arguments against the fact that fish feel pain repeatedly appear even in the face of growing evidence that they do. The standards used to judge pain perception keep moving as the hurdles are repeatedly cleared by novel research findings. There is undoubtedly a vested commercial interest in proving that fish do not feel pain, so the topic has a half-life well past its due date. Key (2016) reiterates previous perspectives on this topic characterised by a black-or-white view that is based on the proposed role of the human cortex in pain perception. I argue that this is incongruent with our understanding of evolutionary processes. Keywords: pain, fishes, behaviour, physiology, nociception Culum Brown [email protected] studies the behavioural ecology of fishes with a special interest in learning and memory. He is Associate Professor of vertebrate evolution at Macquarie University, Co-Editor of the volume Fish Cognition and Behavior, and Editor for Animal Behaviour of the Journal of Fish Biology. -
Animal Cognition Research Offers Outreach Opportunity John Carey, Science Writer
SCIENCE AND CULTURE SCIENCE AND CULTURE Animal cognition research offers outreach opportunity John Carey, Science Writer In a classroom in Thailand, groups of elementary school human populations growing and wildlife habitat shrink- children are marching around large sheets of newspaper ing, there’s less room for people and animals. In Thai- on the floor. Music plays. Each group of five kids has a land, that’s led to increasing conflicts between newspaper sheet. When the music stops, the children crop-raiding elephants and farmers. These clashes rush to stand on their sheet. The first time, there’sroom go beyond the research realm, involving a complex for all. As music starts and stops, though, the teacher interplay of conservation, economics, and societal makes the newspaper sheet smaller and smaller. Eventu- concerns. So the scientist behind the exercise, ally, five pairs of feet can no longer fit on the sheet. Some Hunter College psychologist and elephant researcher of the children climb on their partners, cramming their Joshua Plotnik, figured he needed to branch out bodies together before tumbling to the ground laughing. beyond his fieldwork on elephant cognition and The children are having a great time. But this game find ways to use his research to help reduce those of “losing space” also has a serious message. With conflicts. “The fight to protect elephants and other Elephants can cooperate with one another by pulling simultaneously on both ends of the rope to gather food from a platform. Joshua Plotnik has sought to incorporate such results into education and conservation efforts. Image courtesy of Joshua Plotnik. -
Critical Perspectives on Veganism
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON VEGANISM Edited by Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simonsen The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series Series Editors Andrew Linzey Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics Oxford , United Kingdom Priscilla Cohn Villanova , Pennsylvania, USA Aim of the series In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the ethics of our treatment of animals. Philosophers have led the way, and now a range of other scholars have followed from historians to social scientists. From being a marginal issue, animals have become an emerging issue in ethics and in multidisciplinary inquiry. Th is series will explore the challenges that Animal Ethics poses, both conceptually and practically, to traditional understandings of human-animal relations. Specifi cally, the Series will: • provide a range of key introductory and advanced texts that map out ethical positions on animals • publish pioneering work written by new, as well as accomplished, scholars; • produce texts from a variety of disciplines that are multidisciplinary in character or have multidisciplinary relevance. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14421 Jodey Castricano • Rasmus R. Simonsen Editors Critical Perspectives on Veganism Editors Jodey Castricano Rasmus R. Simonsen Th e University of British Columbia Copenhagen School of Design and Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada Technology Copenhagen, Denmark Th e Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ISBN 978-3-319-33418-9 ISBN 978-3-319-33419-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33419-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950059 © Th e Editor(s) (if applicable) and Th e Author(s) 2016 Th is work is subject to copyright. -
Conceptions of Human Uniqueness Among Vegetarians and Omnivoresy
European Journal of Social Psychology, Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 41, 201–209 (2011) Published online 5 August 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.766 Research article The humanity of what we eat: Conceptions of human uniqueness among vegetarians and omnivoresy MICHAL BILEWICZ1*, ROLAND IMHOFF2 AND MAREK DROGOSZ3 1Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Poland; 2Institute for Psychology, University of Bonn, Germany; 3Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland Abstract Studies on dehumanization demonstrated that denying certain human characteristics might serve as a strategy for moral disengagement. Meat consumption—especially in the times of cruel animal farming—is related to the exclusion of animals from the human scope of justice. In the present research, it was hypothesized that the conception of human uniqueness (denying animals certain psychological characteristics) might be a strategy of meat-eaters’ moral disengagement. Three studies compared the extent to which vegetarians and omnivores attribute psychological characteristics to humans versus animals. In Study 1, vegetarian participants ascribed more secondary (uniquely human) emotions to animals than did the omnivores; however, there were no differences in primary (animalistic) emotions. Study 2 showed that omnivores distinguish human characteristics from animalistic ones more sharply than vegetarians do, while both groups do not differ in distinguishing human characteristics from mechanistic ones. Study 3 confirmed the results by showing that omnivores ascribed less secondary emotions to traditionally edible animals than to the non-edible species, while vegetarians did not differentiate these animals. These results support the claim that the lay conceptions of ‘human uniqueness’ are strategies of moral disengagement. -
JAGE-691 Fish Cognition and Consciousness Colin Allen [email protected] Phone
JAGE-691 Fish Cognition and Consciousness Colin Allen [email protected] phone: +1-812-606-0881 fax: +1-812-855-3631 Program in Cognitive Science and Department of History and Philosophy of Science Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA ABSTRACT. Questions about fish consciousness and cognition are receiving increasing attention. In this paper, I explain why one must be careful to avoid drawing conclusions too hastily about this hugely di- verse set of species. Keywords. Fish, learning, cognition, consciousness 1. Introduction to the controversy The cognitive and mental capacities of fish are a current topic of scientific controversy, and consciousness is the most contentious of topics. In a recent review article, Michel Cabanac and coauthors (Cabanac et al. 2009) argue that consciousness did not emerge until the early Amniota, the group of species that includes mammals, birds, and "reptiles.” The latter term is in scare quotes because biologists consider it a paraphy- letic group (i.e., a group that contains just a subset of the descendants of its common ancestor) that is im- proper for classification purposes due to its exclusion of the birds, which descended from the saurians. Amniotes are characterized by an embryonic membrane that makes terrestrial reproduction feasible. The amphibians, lacking this adaptation, are constrained to place their eggs in an aqueous environment for proper development. These biological details are important because of the nature of some of the evidence that Cabanac et al. bring to bear on the question of consciousness in fish – evidence that I shall maintain seems skewed towards other adaptations that have to do with terrestrial life. -
Current Perspectives in Cognitive Processing by Domesticated Animals
EDITORIAL published: 23 August 2021 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.736717 Editorial: Current Perspectives in Cognitive Processing by Domesticated Animals Katherine Bruce 1†, David A. Leavens 2† and Sarah T. Boysen 3,4*† 1 Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, United States, 2 School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom, 3 Center for Animal Welfare Science, Department of Pathobiology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States, 4 Comparative Cognition Project, Sunbury, OH, United States Keywords: animal cognition, animals, non-human cognition, cognitive processing, behavior Editorial on the Research Topic Current Perspectives in Cognitive Processing by Domesticated Animals Recently, studies of cognitive processing in domestic animals, especially dogs, seem to have increased exponentially, and research with more typical laboratory animals, such as rats, pigeons, and non-human primates seems to be declining. Funding for behavioral and/or cognitive work with animals has always been challenging, and as costs for animal housing, care, and per diems have increased significantly in the past two decades, researchers have looked to other subject pools that do not require major funding for conducting relevant and important studies that can contribute significantly to our field. Thus, companion animals, notably dogs, have become an important Edited and reviewed by: resource for studies of animal cognition, as well as other accessible and less-studied species like Watanabe Shigeru, goats, horses, and pigs, among others. The Research Topic, entitled “Current Perspectives in Keio University, Japan Cognitive Processing in Domestic Animals,” included 10 papers covering a range of topics and *Correspondence: species, with summaries of each paper provided here. -
Fish Sentience Denial: Muddying the Waters
Sneddon, Lynne U.; Lopez-Luna, Javier; Wolfenden, David C.C.; Leach, Matthew C.; Valentim, Ana M.; Steenbergen, Peter J.; Bardine, Nabila; Currie, Amanda D.; Broom, Donald M.; and Brown, Culum (2018) Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters. Animal Sentience 21(1) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1317 This article has appeared in the journal Animal Sentience, a peer-reviewed journal on animal cognition and feeling. It has been made open access, free for all, by WellBeing International and deposited in the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sneddon, Lynne U.; Lopez-Luna, Javier; Wolfenden, David C.C.; Leach, Matthew C.; Valentim, Ana M.; Steenbergen, Peter J.; Bardine, Nabila; Currie, Amanda D.; Broom, Donald M.; and Brown, Culum (2018) Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters. Animal Sentience 21(1) DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1317 Authors 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, and Culum Brown This article is available in Animal Sentience: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/ animsent/vol3/iss21/1 Animal Sentience 2018.115: Sneddon et al. on Sentience Denial Call for Commentary: Animal Sentience publishes Open Peer Commentary on all accepted target articles. Target articles are peer-reviewed. Commentaries are editorially reviewed. There are submitted commentaries as well as invited commentaries. Commentaries appear as soon as they have been reviewed, revised and accepted. Target article authors may respond to their commentaries individually or in a joint response to multiple commentaries. Instructions: animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/guidelines.html Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters Lynne U.