Animal Consciousness

Question 1

Why is the question of whether non-human animals are conscious, important?

Answer 1

Consciousness as a product of evolution. Is it a dividing line between species or a gradation/continuum? It may help understand the cognitive/neural prerequisites of consciousness, and aid ethical/moral implications

Question 2

What two papers look at animals and pain/subjective experience?

Answer 2

The Harrison paper and the Baars paper

Question 3

What concepts of consciousness can be questioned as to whether they are applicable to non-human animals also?

Answer 3

Level of consciousness, sentience, phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness, self-consciousness, and possibly other requirements such as theory of mind, metacognition, language?

Question 4

What is phenomenal consciousness?

Answer 4

‘What is it like’ eg is there anything that it is like to be a bat (Nagel 1976)

Question 5

Do animals have phenomenal consciousness?

Answer 5

Widely-held common-sense view that phenomenal consciousness is more likely in mammals and birds than invertebrates (more controversial is the question of reptiles, amphibians and fish

Question 6

What two central questions arise from Allen and Bekoff 2007?

Answer 6

Can we know which animals beside humans are conscious (the distribution question), and can we know what, if anything, the experiences of animals are like (the phenomenological question)?

Question 7

What is access consciousness?

Answer 7

Access or availability of information between certain special or privileged subsystems of the brain

Question 8

What are the conditions for a state to be access-conscious?

Answer 8

If in virtue of one’s having the state, a representation of it’s content is: poised to be used as a premise in reasoning, and poised for rational control of action, and poised for rational control of speech (Block 1995)

Question 9

What are the types/degrees of self-consciousness?

Answer 9

Bodily awareness and possession, autonoetic/episodic memory, and capacity for metacognition

Question 10

What is bodily awareness and possession?

Answer 10

A non-cognitive capacity for perceptual discrimination of self and other. ‘Self-referencing’. A cognitive capacity to discriminate between own and others’ bodies or possessions/territories. ‘Self-awareness’

Question 11

What is autonoetic/episodic memory?

Answer 11

Knowing not just what or where, but also when

Question 12

What is capacity for metacognition?

Answer 12

Second-order representations of one’s own mental states. ‘Thought about thought’

Question 13

How do animals perform on the mirror or mark test (the rouge test)?

Answer 13

Chimpanzees but not monkeys can pass (Gallup 1970). Capuchin monkeys recognise reflection as special and may not confuse it with conspecific (De Waal et al 2005)

Question 14

What are the problems with the mirror test?

Answer 14

What about false negatives? Is it appropriate for all species? Does passing it indicate self-awareness or a sense of self? Is it an appropriate test of second-order representation, or of theory of mind?

Question 15

What is mental time travel?

Answer 15

To mentally project oneself backwards in time to re-live, or forwards to pre-live events (Suddendorf and Corballis 1997)

Question 16

What is episodic memory?

Answer 16

Remembering what, where and when

Question 17

What was Clayton and Dickinson’s 1998 study?

Answer 17

Demonstrated that scrub-jays knew what food was caches, where it was caches and when it was cached. Episodic memory for the catching event. Greater number of inspections to the side with peanuts on the 124h trials. All birds looked first to the peanut side. Birds also behaved as though they understood that lapse of time increased the likelihood of pilfering

Question 18

Why is the what, where, when criteria not necessary or sufficient for mental time travel?

Answer 18

One can mentally revisit an event without accurate information as to what, where and when, demonstrated by personal experience and research on false memories, for example. Conversely, one can know what, where and when something happened, eg one’s birth, without remembering the event itself

Question 19

What is autonoetic consciousness?

Answer 19

To reflect on the contents of episodic memory; the phenomenological experience of episodic memory. Autonoetic = self-knowing

Question 20

What is capacity for metacognition?

Answer 20

‘Thoughts about thoughts’ or ‘knowing what one knows’

Question 21

How can you test the presence of capacity for metacognition in animals?

Answer 21

Information seeking task (eg Call and Carpenter 2001). Carruthers 2008 skeptical examination of research claiming evidence of metacognition in non-human animals. Crystal and Foote 2011 also skeptical. Beran et al 2013 claim their method avoids these criticisms

Question 22

What was Beran et al’s 2013 study?

Answer 22

Task ensures that a subject always knows that there is a valuable item in a container but sometimes foes not know what that item is. Chimps had to name a food item in a container, rather than find it, thus they always had the belief that food was in the container and had a desire to get that food. If chimp knows what’s in container, it should be able to name it immediately without needing to look in the container. If chimp doesn’t know what’s in the container, it would have to look in the container before being able to name it. Evidence of ‘efficient information seeking behaviour by chimpanzees that suggested they knew what they had or had not already seen’. Container first in non-visible trials and keyboard first in visible trials

Question 23

What are other markers of, or prerequisites for consciousness?

Answer 23

Theory of mind? Deception? Knowing what others can see or know? Imitation? Language? Humour? Etc…

Question 24

What are similarities between human and animal consciousness?

Answer 24

Similarities between animal behaviours and behaviours that can be conducted unconsciously by humans, and between key brain structures and functions

Question 25

What are the differences between human and animal consciousness?

Answer 25

Failures of animals to display certain cognitive/intellectual capacities, and dissimilarities between key brain structures and functions