Animal lovers insist their fellow creatures experience joy, sympathy, fear and grief, but scientifi cally, it is hard to say By Klaus Wilhelm Do Animals Have FEELI CREDIT CREDIT 24 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND February/March 2006 NGS? CREDIT CREDIT www.sciammind.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 25 n the dusty horizon, two troops of elephants emerge 100 yards apart and walk toward each other. The beasts trumpet loudly, fl ap their ears and turn in Ocircles. They seem to know one another—the whole event appears to be a family reunion. Anyone who travels the African savanna is some form of emotions—and investigating them apt to have witnessed such a meeting. In her de- is now a hot topic. cades of fi eldwork, Joyce H. Poole, research di- rector for the Amboseli Trust for Elephants in Anxious about Emotions Kenya, has watched similar encounters many Some eminent scientists have boldly explored times. “These elephants,” the biologist says with the riddle of animal emotions. Charles Darwin, conviction, “are happy to see their old friends the English naturalist and father of evolutionary and acquaintances.” theory, wrote an entire book entitled The Ex- Investigators have also watched as a herd pression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. gathers around a stillborn calf. The pachyderms No one can deny that animals have emotions, he repeatedly touch the dead infant with their concluded, given the striking similarities be- trunks, as if to rouse it. Then for days they stand tween human and animal behavior. But in the vigil, with drooping ears. At other times, when a century that followed the book’s publication in herd member is sick or wounded by a hunter, they 1872, a reductionist view took hold: bees, frogs, caress the victim, offering support, and care for cats and all animals are merely organisms that it until it is restored to health or dies. follow hardwired, instinctual behavior patterns. Other animals seem to show emotions. They are devoid of feelings. Roughhousing chimpanzees emit sounds charac- Recently, however, a more nuanced view has teristic of joy and laughter. Dogs yelp to spur begun to gain credence, sparked by the question other dogs to play, and researchers who have of what survival advantage humans, or animals, played recordings of these sounds in kennels and gain from emotions anyway. According to Dar- shelters have shown that the noise can reduce winism, every organism has one overriding goal: stress levels in the animals there. Even laboratory to reproduce, as well and as often as possible. For rats make seemingly delighted chirps above the worms, insects or jellyfi sh, following a predeter- range of human hearing when tickled, some ex- mined pattern of behavior in pursuit of this goal ) perts say. might be suffi cient to achieve it. But for fi sh, rep- Individuals who claim animals have feelings tiles, birds and vertebrates, behavior is less routin- are usually accused of anthropomorphism—as- ized. Ultimately, mammals are extremely fl exible, cribing human traits to nonhuman beings. But and as such their activity cannot just result from pages preceding ( after years of ignoring or discounting what pet hardwired templates. How, then, do rats, goats, lovers have long maintained, scientists are fi nally apes, elephants and humans know which actions beginning to believe that mammals, at least, have will best guarantee survival and reproduction? Among other cues, they may use emotions. Getty Images (The Author) This statement, that an animal may “use emo- tions,” only demonstratively means that its brain KLAUS WILHELM is a biologist and freelance science writer in Berlin. reacts to certain events in certain ways—a net- TIM FLACH 26 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND February/March 2006 Joy is a primary emotion, along with anger and sadness. Young mammals play to learn skills. (But it is the fun that ensures that they play.) work of neurons fi res, initiating a predictable be- terprets those emotions. In humans and sea slugs, havior. An animal will avoid situations that, in the heart rates increase and muscles contract when past, made it feel threatened. Likewise, a creature the organisms are afraid of something, but an or- that associates a positive experience with a certain ganism registers the feeling of fear only after its action will seek the same one in the future. So far, brain becomes aware of the physical changes. so good. But does that animal feel in the course of For social emotions, Damasio lists sympathy, things? This point is where the experts disagree. embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride, envy, jeal- A basic part of the discussion turns on the ousy, gratitude, admiration, contempt and indig- defi nition of emotion and feelings. Psychologists nation. These are not limited to humankind ei- and neurologists do not even concur for humans, ther. Dominant gorillas swagger around to de- much less for animals. In his 2003 book Looking mand respect from their peers. Low-ranking ) for Spinoza, infl uential neuroscientist Antonio R. wolves in packs make gestures of abasement. Damasio of the University of Iowa lays out an Dogs reprimanded by their owners for doing bottom ( increasingly popular scheme that distinguishes something wrong show clear signals of embar- between primary, almost instinctive emotions; rassment. Yet even in such cases, as with primary social emotions that help an individual mesh emotions, some neuroscientists say these actions with a group; and feelings, which stem from self- Getty Images Indignation is a refl ection. social emotion, Primary emotions include fear, anger, disgust, as are jealousy surprise, sadness and joy, and Damasio ascribes and pride. them to many animals. Even the primitive sea slug ); DANIEL DAY DAY DANIEL ); Aplysia shows fear. When its gills are touched, its top ( blood pressure and pulse go up and it shrivels in size. These are not refl exes, Damasio says, but elements of a fear response—complex, mutually Getty Images dependent reactions. He emphasizes, however, that such organisms do not produce feelings. To Damasio and many others, emotions are physical signals of the body responding to stimuli, and DANIEL J. COX feelings are sensations that arise as the brain in- www.sciammind.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 27 Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself he pharmaceutical industry assumes that animals can feel fear in the same way people do. Otherwise T it never would have spent millions of dollars on mouse experiments in the search for drugs to combat anxiety. Fear has been better studied than any other an- imal emotion. The degree of fear mice feel can be quantifi ed using the “elevated plus maze test.” A pole about a yard high has four arms extending out horizontally, each one at a right angle to the next (photograph). Two of the arms have walls to prevent falling, but the other two arms are open. If a mouse makes a false step on an open arm, it will fall hard. Most mice placed at the middle of the maze will choose to move out along a protected arm. If mice are given a drug that reduces anxiety in people, however, they will readily move out along the open arms. —K.W. are largely automatic and inborn and count them that are much older in evolutionary history and among the routinized mechanisms animals use that we share with all mammals. He points, for to help them survive. example, to a recent research study led by Naomi I. Eisenberger of the University of California, Los Ancient Refl ection Angeles. Eisenberger used functional magnetic Feelings, in contrast, well up from the ana- resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor the brain lytical mind. Someone who “feels good,” who activity of subjects who felt socially excluded. Vol- experiences joy, is aware of her body being in a unteers were asked to take part in a virtual ball particular state. The perception of such a feeling game on a computer screen and told that two oth- requires processing by several somatosensory er participants hidden from view were also play- brain regions in the cerebral cortex that map ing. In reality, the two “others” were simply icons parts of the body and their condition and, simul- controlled by a computer program. In the game, taneously, brain activity that assesses what those the three players were to toss a virtual ball back conditions mean. In essence, this processing con- and forth, but the two computer-controlled “peo- stitutes self-refl ection, which can occur either ple” passed only to each other, ignoring the live University slowly or very fast. person watching them on the screen. The volun- It is diffi cult to prove that animals possess the teers later told the researchers that the experience capacity for self-refl ection. Damasio theorizes of being excluded had felt hurtful. that pygmy chimpanzees, for example, may be The fMRI scans taken during the snubbing able to show the social emotion of pity for other showed signifi cant activity in several brain re- animals but that they do not realize they are ex- gions, especially the anterior cingular cortex. Pre- hibiting pity. Given this inability to confi rm what vious studies by others have indicated that people is happening in an animal’s head, Damasio is re- placed in situations that made them sad showed luctant to imply that it possesses feelings. unusual activity in the thalamus and the brain Other experts are willing to entertain the no- stem. These regions play key roles in the limbic Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Hoshi tion. Jaak Panksepp, a renowned behavioral sci- system—the area of the brain that produces and entist at Bowling Green State University, agrees regulates emotion. that only humans can think about their feelings, thanks to their highly developed neocortex.