Cognition, Consciousness and Sentience

Question 1

Define consciousness

Answer 1

The state of being aware of and responsive to ones surroundings

Question 2

Define cognition

Answer 2

the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Question 3

Define sentience

Answer 3

the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively

Question 4

Why do many people treat pets like small children?

Answer 4

Anthropomorphism- they feel as though pets have the same mental capacities, just at a lower level, like a dog is similar mentally to a young human child.

Question 5

why is intelligence a problematic term for animal psychology?

Answer 5

there is ongoing debate about what intelligence is, where it comes from and how to measure it modern definition of intelligence or cognition recognizes that each species has its own problems to solve. (Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid)

Question 6

Why is animal cognition currently used more than animal intelligence?

Answer 6

You don’t have to be clever to be conscious, there is less focus now on how animals are like humans and more focus on how animals process and use information

Question 7

basic awareness of sensations or emotions (sentience) does not depend on either self-consciousness or cognitive complexity, true or false?

Answer 7

true

Question 8

What is ‘this is painful’ just as ethically important as?

Answer 8

I feel pain

Question 9

Why can it be argued that pain is worse for animals?

Answer 9

Because the cannot rationalise it

Question 10

What can cognitive complexity tell us in regard to suffering?

Answer 10

the types of situation in which suffering might occur, and ways of managing events to reduce suffering

Question 11

For most people, what lies at the heart of our concern for animal welfare?

Answer 11

Their conscious mental experiences

Question 12

What is meant by “having moral status?”

Answer 12

Being a moral patient

Question 13

What is the difference between being a moral patient and being a moral agent?

Answer 13

having morals has to do with being a moral agent (e.g a new born baby is a moral patient as it has moral status, but it has not yet developed the ability to have its own morals so it is not a moral agent)

Question 14

What os sapience?

Answer 14

relates to the ability to form ideas and express them in a detailed language that allows their distribution among those that can interpret the language
only applies to humans

Question 15

State the two different degrees of consciousness

Answer 15

Perceptive/core/primary

reflective/extended

Question 16

What is perceptive/core/primary consciousness?

Answer 16

Simple sensations and feelings (sentience)

Question 17

What is reflective/extended consciousness?

Answer 17

self-awareness, introspection, awareness of thoughts, beliefs

Question 18

State the two different types of consciousness

Answer 18

1. Self awareness

2. Self consciousness

Question 19

What is meant by self awareness?

Answer 19

Having a concept of yourself, to be subjectively aware of oneself as a unique thinking, feeling individual

Question 20

What is meant by self consciousness?

Answer 20

the basic awareness of feelings such as sensations and emotions

Question 21

From an animal welfare perspective, what concept is the most important?

Answer 21

Sentience

Question 22

name the two approaches you can take to study sentience

Answer 22

1. Functional

2. Mechanistic

Question 23

Explain the difference between a function and a mechanistic approach to studying sentience

Answer 23

Functional= – examining the role of feelings/emotions in human behaviour and asking whether the function is the same in animals

Mechanistic= – Are the mechanisms of underlying similar in humans and other species

Question 24

Describe some evidence for animal sentience/ consciousness (3)

Answer 24

1. Close similarity of basic central nervous system structure and function in a wide variety of animals
2. Versatile adjustment of behaviour in response to unpredictable challenges
3. Animal communication

Question 25

What are some of the challenges associated with animal sentience/consicousness

Answer 25

It is a challenge for neuroscience to discover the nature of consciousness, e,g does consciousness come from;Size or complexity of the human brain? Specific areas, e.g. language ability?

At the moment, there is no clear evidence that any specific area is responsible for or needed to produce consciousness.

Possible that conscious thinking is a core function of central nervous systems

No way to yet determine the minimum brain size necessary for basic consciousness

Question 26

What is meant by versitility?

Answer 26

The ability for animals to depart from routine behaviour patterns to cope with new or unpredictable challenge

Question 27

How is versatility indicative of self awareness?

Answer 27

Because versatility requires the ability to carry out short term planning

Question 28

What is episodic memory?

Answer 28

Memories of past events can be said to include awareness of perceiving the event on some occasion

Question 29

What does tool use require?

Answer 29

short term planning and adaptation of behaviour to novel situations

Question 30

Provide evidence that animals use communication to report a subjective experience

Answer 30

In various species (monkeys, mongoose, prairie dog) alarm calls signalling the presence of different predators, urgency of the threat also indicated by volume of the call. Response of the group depends on the nature of the alarm call

Question 31

Name the four higher cognitive processes

Answer 31

1. Object permanence
2. Reasoning
3. Concept formulation
4. Theory of mind

Question 32

What is meant by theory of mind?

Answer 32

The awareness of mental states of others

Question 33

What is meant by reasoning?

Answer 33

Mental calculation and problem solving