Consciousness in Animals?

Are animals conscious? 

Analysis of animal behavior

Simone de Rooij

Introduction 

It is normally accepted that we, homo sapiens exhibit consciousness. There are a lot of theories on the subject matter. We are aware of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, morality and aspirations. But how is it like to be me when another human being has to imagine all those contents of me? This is the third person's view. How is it like to be a person?

We can gather a lot of third Person data about consciousness. We can introspect about our experiences and can now even use fMRI and other neurophysiological indexes measuring about human conscious 'states' to get more direct access. But still we cannot fully explain or give a theory of consciousness. But for me consciousness has a seat in our brains, but how it functions is unclear.

But are we the only one of species that is conscious? I definitely do not think like that. Are chimpanzees conscious? And what about drosophila the well known and studied fruitfly?

Of course we cannot sit in these animals minds, but the same holds true for us humans. But i think that it is impossible that only we 'homo sapiens' are equipped with that fantastic aspect. I think that there are a lot of animals that are not only driven by their instincts. Rather, some animals are conscious in one or another way. Below I will set out my theory of animal consciousness and try to give some interesting examples from some animals.

My intelligent cats

Ten years ago I had two kittens shortly after another. The first one was a male and short haired. The second kitten was a female Ragdoll kitten that came to my place a few weeks later. Her name was Bella. After a few weeks she started to have recurrent fevers and after many visits to the vet and months later she died of feline infectious peritonitis (fip). I left her at the vet and she finally was being cremated. Now comes the story about my argument of consciousness. My other cat was very quit after losing his friend and came to me and went on laying on the couch,  then he putted his pawn on my hand and looked sad and lonely. Of course I cannot know his feelings from a third person view but to me it was like he felt grief. And the pawn on my hand might be explained as showing his grief to me. He also refused to eat the first days and was like a kind of searching Bella. Food and water are essential needs so these behaviors I consider as innate instinct. But the refusal I do not consider instinctual, rather a conscious decision because of feeling grief. And when as I think of this is a feeling my cat must have some catlike thoughts and I consider him conscious.  

Human beings have language with which they can communicate about their experiences, animals cannot. I think animals communicate also with each other and their pet owners. For example, a communication dialogue comes into existence when the animal e.g. cat or dog finds an empty bowl and comes to the pet owner and makes some gestures that you need to follow. When you arrive at the empty Bowl you understand the animal is thirsty and wants water. To me this is a form of communication, not the act of drinking, rather the way it is 'asked' and your resulting behavior. Therefore, I consider this a conscious act. Rather than asking your friend a glass of water by the use of the communicating devices of language, animals do it otherwise.

Consciousness can be subdivided in primary consciousness and higher-order consciousness. Edelman et al. consider whether consciousness has evolved or whether other stakes are at play (Edelman, Baars, and Seth, 2005).

When animals are not sleeping (when they I argue are not conscious) they have sensations and perceptions. Then I consider on that part conscious.

When we humans are in pain we can say it. We are fully conscious about or state 'I am being in pain'. what about when your normally happy playful dog comes to you with a bite mark on his head and making 'crying' sounds? Is this not consciousness? To me this dog is fully conscious about its physical state.

Shriver (2006) states: "Research on the lateral and medial pain pathways has provided some additional evidence to support the claim that it is reasonable to believe that mammals feel pain similar to that categorized as suffering in humans" (Shriver, 2006, p. 440).

My reply to Shriver is that we can only get insight in such things from a third person's' viewpoint. But my opinion is that the difference might be due because we humans have the capacity to communicate by language (and other gestures as well). Animals cannot. But they can to my opinion still communicate their pain status through other modalities.

Donald Griffin and Gayle Speck think that inasmuch animals possess consciousness, its content of their awareness maybe vary from a continuum of the simplest and crudest feelings toward thinking about the confrontations they get and different actions they may select (Griffin and Speck, 2004).

Alain Morin describes: "self awareness" refers to the capacity to become object of one's own attention. It occurs when an organism focusses not on the external environment, but on the internal milieu: it becomes a reflective observer, possessing self-information. The organism becomes aware that it is awake and actually experiencing Specific mental events, emitting behaviors, and possessing unique characteristics (Morin, 2006). Morin further goes: A language component creature may thus verbalize "I feel tired", or "I've been working for three hours", or "I am a good-looking, intelligent person" (Morin, 2006, p. 359).

Edelman et. al. (2005) question whether vocal learning for birdsong in birds resemble a sort of consciousness. In their review about non-mammalian consciousness, Edelman et. al. (2005) searched for the conditions that are needed for consciousness in these species, such as birds and octopuses. Included conditions considered where reentrant neural structures resembling the cortex and thalamus as well as electrical brain activity during task and conditions including also discriminatory behavior. These authors argue that these are not enough for consciousness in these class of species, rather their appearance might suggest that there could be evolutionary precursors that are needed for consciousness.

Birds have great cognitive and behavioral potentials that are in agreement with conscious states including working memory, social learning, planning and the likelihood that they have insight in problem solving (Edelman and Seth, 2009).

 In their paper "Evolution of the neural basis of consciousness: a bird mammal comparison", Butter, Manger, Lindahl, and Arhem discuss avian consciousness. The critical organization thought to be needed for consciousness in the brains of mammals have their homologues equivalents in avian brains (Butter, Manger, Lindahl, and Arhem, 2005). For visual occurance the higher collopallial visual areas and the lemnopallial PFC are obligatory, and according to the authors this is in accordance with the hypothesis of avian brain consciousness.

Crows were trained on a detection task whereby they had to vocalize in reply to the discovery of a visual go cue in order to get a reward (Brecht, Hage, Gavrilov, and Nieder, 2019). It was found that carrion crows can readily control vocal output in a way that is related to its goal. The behavior of the crows supports the criteria for "volitional vocalizations". At first did the crows trustworthy vocalize in response to colored squares, which were the flexible visual cues that did not have any special meaning. further, they gave responses at time after the instruction cue was withheld when there was no vocalizing cuing stimulus, as well as non response to prohibited vocalization (Brecht et. al. 2019).

Animals are sometimes aware of events and objects in their surroundings (Griffin and Speck, 2004).

Imitation recognition was found to be evident in a captive chimpanzee (Nielsen, Collier, Baker, Davis, and Suddendorf, 2005).

Categorization

It is hypothesized by Cook, Shaw, and Blaisdell (2001) that pigeons may be capable in forming generalized natural types for varying kind of motions while they are watching videos. Two experiments were performed. In the first experiment, it was investigated if gaining and shifts for trough/around discrimination. The results of this first experiment revealed that pigeons can learn to differentiate the motion chains around and trough across a large diversity of objects for these actions to occur. This experiment also revealed that this discrimination predominantly moved to new objects. The second experiment used a manipulation of the video frames by showing them in their normal sequences, which is most in accord with with an approaching object, or in a sequence randomized that broke up this motion and natural continuity. It was that the normal course presentation of motion discrimination was better as presentation in a random fashion of the same video (Cook et. al. 2001). The concluding remarks are that the experiments that were done are in agreement with the hypothesis that pigeons can discriminate the motion ways around and trough with a lot of approaching objects in a context that is half-realistic. Furthermore, the authors suggest that their experimental set-up might be used in other investigations as a worthwhile tool in the area of cognition and behavior (Cook et. al., 2001).

It is not known whether the categorization of natural classes in animals is due to perceptual similarity or to an abstract conceptual representation (Marsh and MacDonald, 2008). Two experiments were runned in urang utans to identify the perceptual characteristics while animals are categorizing pictures. the authors wanted to know whether they categorize to local characteristics in isolation or to a "gestalt" that belonged to a special category. It was stated that urang utangs attent to one or more local perceptual characteristics when making discriminations.

Self-awareness in dolphins?

Diana Reiss and Lori Marino investigated mirror self-recognition in two dolphins. These dolphins where marked and showed clear self-recognition on reflective surfaces. These dolphins inspected their body parts where they were marked (Reiss and Marino, 2001). Then, the question arises: are dolphins self-aware? The authors argue that their findings might mean that the emergence of self-recognition is not a by-product of components that are specific to great apes and humans, however, it might be assigned to more common attributes such as a high proportion of encephalization and cognitive ability (Reiss and Mariano, 2001).

Self-recognition in an Asian elephant

Marks were applied to the heads of elephants to see if they would pass the mirror self-recognition test for self-recognition in these animals. The mark-touching elephant has been suggested as evidence that these animals have the capability to recognize itself in a mirror (Plotnik, de Waal, and Reiss, 2006).

Self recognition in rhesus monkeys

Rhesus monkeys may pass the mark test after visuo-somatosensory training. Self directed behaviors were seen with the lack of food reward. These behaviors lasted for a minimum of one year (Chang, Fan, Zhang, Poo, and Gong, 2015).

Deception and empathy

Another series of abilities that are germane to the study of awareness in animals includes the interactions among individuals which encompasses behaviors like deception and empathy (Kuczaj, Tranel, Trone, and Hill, 2001). There is some evidence for these behaviors, which might indicate that these animals (in this report it goes about dolphins and whales) have some form of self-awareness as well of the awareness of the states of others. These authors further argue that for these behaviors other cognitive abilities are required. In deception and empathy, the ability to plan a behavior by deciding an explicit action plan and the skill to successfully carry out the plan are important when the behaviors that are chosen for accomplishing their goals (Kuczaj et. al., 2001).

Marian Stamp Dawkins (2000) contributed to see what the study of animal emotions could tell us about consciousness in animals. There have been two methods that have been set out to study emotions in animals. These are the functional and mechanistic method. In the functional approach the role of emotions in humans is examined and it is then asked if this function is the same in humans and non-humans. The mechanistic approach to study animal emotions is to see whether humans and non-humans have the same mechanisms underlying emotions (Dawkins, 2000).

It was found that rhesus monkeys could be trained in evoking various call types in a direction to a response to subjective visual cues in a go/no-go task (Hage, Gavrilov, and Nieder, 2013). One monkey had learned to shift among two different call types from trial to trial as an effect of cues that were visually dissimilar. Accordingly, it is suggested that these monkeys can voluntarily control their vocal behavior.

Episodic memory?

Babb and Crystal (2005) found that rats had the knowledge of what, when, and where after a taste aversion manipulation. It is suggested that animals might exhibit an episodic-like memory.

What does all this tells us about consciousness in animals?

Until now I have given some personal and experimental examples of the possibility that some animals are conscious. From my own experience and the discussed experiments I argue that some animals have this ability. Behaviorally they show complex acts such as self-recognition as well as deception and empathy. How can these occur without being in a conscious state? There are further numerous experiments on animal learning, for example classical conditioning and operant learning. When animals (there is a lot of research in this area in rodents) perform such tasks, does consciousness come in? Another question I am interested in is whether some animals have a Theory of Mind capacity. I think that this is a difficult question to answer and responses will be in different directions. For now I let it in between whether there are animals with a theory of mind. Later in this paper, after presenting some research I will give my opinion. However, I think that there might be a difference for example among monkeys that are instantly in contact with humans and monkeys living in the wild.  

Animal meta-cognition and theory of mind

Regulating and monitoring our cognitive states is called meta-cognition. It is thinking about thinking. In humans, the language component is considered important. In animals these tasks in the search for meta-cognition are perceptual behavioral tasks (because animals lack the capacity of language). In his review, Smith (2009) describes the uncertainty response (UR). Animals were made uncertain in two tasks. At first, animals were given difficult perceptual discriminations, which made them maybe uncertain in their mind. Thereafter, in the second task, the animals were given a second response which was apart from the discrimination response. The animals could reject to finish any trials of their decision. This UR permits animals to disclose on, or cope with the struggle. If the animals oversee cognition correctly, they should in advance know difficult trials as error-risking by refusing those trials selectively (Smith, 2009). When animals are untrained, they obviously show the uncertainty response (UR). They show delayed reinforcement as well and so further. Smith (2009) argues that in humans these are diagnostics of conscious uncertainty (p. 395).

In the animal literature there is an important question as to whether meta-cognition in humans and animals resemble each other (Morgan, Kornell, Kornblum, and Terrace, 2014). These investigators designed two experiments to assess the flexibility of rhesus monkeys' metacognitive capabilities, retrospectively as well as prospectively. In the first experiment it was tested if monkeys that were previously trained in making risky choices would transfer this capability to a new memory task. In the second experiment, it was tested whether monkeys, by using the same memory task as in the first experiment, would make good prospective memory judgments. In the first experiment monkeys exhibited immediate transfer of metacognitive capabilities to a new memory task and in experiment two, involving metamemory prospective judgment the monkeys showed transfer to the new task as soon that when it was possible to assess their metacognitive capabilities. Accordingly, it is concluded by these investigators that monkeys have metacognitive abilities (Morgan et. al. 2014).

Cognition could be used for human and animal minds (Smith, 2009). In situations in which animals did not have training, they need adaptive action. Such a situation does not include habits for responding in the right manner. As such, they need to collect associated facts in their minds as well as memories to evaluate what their risks and opportunities are. What they need is a place where they can collect the information and make a decision for making the best action. When consciousness works in a good way, these functions are supported (Smith, 2009). The evolution of consciousness in some vertebrates is according to Smith promoted by a requirement for a difficulty/novelty decisional advantage.

According to Kaminski, Call, and Tomasello (2008) do understand goal-directed actions and perceptions as well as the knowledge of others in the case of wat was seen in the recent past. They furthermore argue that chimpanzees do not exhibit a fully representational theory of mind, because they do not pass the false-believe task.

Paukner, Anderson, and Fujita (2006) investigated whether capucin monkeys did understand their own visual search capabilities as a means to get information. The experiment consisted of u tube test in one was hidden food. Searching behavior was to be found unrelated to successful Outcomes (Paukner et. al., 2006). the conclusion was that capucin monkeys have limited meta-cognitive abilities.

Orangutans and bonobos were found to point to an object that a human needed (Zimmermann, Zemke, Call, and Gomez, 2009).

Nate Kornell states that meta-cognition needs a response that is based on internal states. The capability to make judgements of certainty might be so because the animal can use self-reflection by looking inward and assess the strength of their personal memories (Kornell, 2014).

Capuchin monkeys were analyzed in a food requesting task by two behavioral indexes: that were the amount of pointing and how long to monkeys looked at the experimenter (Hattori, Kuroshima, and Fujita, 2007). Two experiments were conducted. In the first experiment, the experimenter looked either toward the monkey or toward the ceiling. Monkeys paid more attention to the experimenter while looking at than when to the ceiling. Pointing behavior was not found. In the second experiment, there was an eyes open condition and an eyes closed condition in which the experimenter looked between two cups. Also in this experiment pointing behavior was not really observed, however the monkeys had more attention to the experimenter when their eyes were open. In both experiments there was no difference in pointing whitch was explained as that pointing gestures having not a communicative function, such as the gestures that come from intens operant conditioning training (Hattori et al., 2007).

In their article "What do monkeys know about others' knowledge" Drayton and Santas (2018) results were in agreement with the explanation that rhesus macaques assume others to update their depictions of unseen objects. Rhesus macaque monkeys performed on a rotational displacement task in which they looked longer in the case when the demonstrator was reaching in a box that did not had fruit inside suggesting that the experimenter was able to track the fruit to the current place. In the other experiment it was tested whether these findings were the result of the experimenter witnessing. However, this was not the case. These findings are in agreement that monkeys are expecting that others dynamically update their likeness of objects that are unseen (Drayton and Santas, 2018).

Cheny and Seyfath (1992) investigated social behavior and communication in vervet monkeys of East Africa. It was concluded that these monkeys do notice social interactions and also recognize the associations that occur among others. They as well categorize relationships into meaning.

In their paper, Subiaul, Romansky, Cantlon, Klein, and Terrace (2007) conclude that monkeys as well as humans share the capability of the imitation of new cognitive rules. These investigators stress that their results may be viewed as signs about the emergence of imitation in evolution.

MacLean and Hare (2011) assessed whether bonobos and chimpanzees have and use their knowledge of a human experience in the past and what that human is emotionally responding to in the present. In the first experiment, bonobos and chimpanzees were tested for the hypothesis whether they would be more feasible to gaze past an object emoted by the experimenter when in the first case the experimenter did previously orient towards this object and being not responsive to it, and in the second case, whether the experimenter was not orienting to the object. The results of the first experiment revealed that chimpanzees are similar to human beings considering making inferences about the attention of others. In their second experiment, bonobos and chimpanzees used information about what was not seen by the investigator when attention was payed to gaze cues that were not of diagnostic use. In this study, the authors conclude that our 'last common ancestor' was capable of assigning the attentional states of others. They further state that the capacity to represent the psychological states is not only apparent in humans and does not only depend on language (MacLean and Hare, 2011).

Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, and Tomasello (2017) suggest that retrieval and contextual cuing are not enough to explain the correct prediction of actions that were mistaken by an agent. Apes performed a false-belief task but the authors found no evidence for submentalizing while they made anticipatory looks (Krupenye et. al. 2017).

Experiments suggest that nonhuman primates as well as human infants have the same capacity to recognize and assess the right way of goal-directed behavior. But this capability is more elaborated in human infants (Rochet, Serva, Fadiga, and Galese, 2008). Furthermore, it suggests that perceptual and/or motor expertise are pivotal parts for the evolution of the capability in understanding intentional behavior in others in human beings (Rochet et al. 2008).

Meta-cognition in animals is to me a real potential. To perform some behaviors an animal has to think what it will do to him or her and how it must be accomplished to reach his or her final act. The animal has to think in steps and may have several options of how to proceed to reach its goal. And here comes meta-cognition come in. I do not think that all animals have this capacity, but more intelligent animals should have some form of it. However, a theory of mind as in human beings I consider not probable. I think that some higher animals can have some aspects of it but not everything. I think that some animals have the capacity to mentalize. But thinking about thinking is maybe a bit to harsh. I think meta-cognition in animals is only apparent in chimpanzees and other great apes, and maybe in dolphins.

Experiments suggest that nonhuman primates as well as human infants have the same capacity to recognize and assess the right way of goal-directed behavior. But this capability is more elaborated in human infants (Rochet, Serva, Fadiga, and Galese, 2008). Furthermore, it suggests that perceptual and/or motor expertise are pivotal parts for the evolution of the capability in understanding intentional behavior in others in human beings (Rochet et al. 2008).

Problem solving

Puzzle boxes were presented to great apes by Voelter and Call (2012). To solve problems it was found that great apes can make use of visual feedback. Visual inspection by those apes helps them to solve different apparatus problems. In the first experiment a tube opened on both sides was presented in two conditions (clear vs opaque) in which a reward could be revealed (a banana). In this experiment the subjects had a stick with which they could extract the banana. The second experiment had also those two versions, but now another apparatus was applied. The clear vision version was made of transparent acrylic glass which included sticks, such that the subjects could see how it worked. It was found that most of the subjects were capable to solve this task, that was not due to the degree of the visual information about the apparatus mechanisms. The latency was however longer in the hidden condition then in the clear condition. In the last experiment another apparatus was used with both a clear and a hidden version. This task required coordinated actions by the subject. For example, at first the handle of the crank had to be turned constantly with either one or both of their hands, on one or both sides of the apparatus. The reward was reached at the right height (Voelter and Call, 2012).

Imitation

Imitation recognition was found in a captive chimpanzee by Nielsen, Collier, Baker, Davis, and Suddendorf (2005).

Differences among primates?

There are sigb

Are animals conscious?

The above cited experiments are in favor higher animals having conscious states. knowing about knowing can but also be unconsciously happen. But several behaviors to me are indicative that some animals have conscious like properties the same as human beings have. Of course, we cannot know for sure because we are not that specific animal. Furthermore, I argue that language is not a necessary condition to be considered in a conscious state. For example, some children with autism do not speak, but they are fully conscious (it is suggested that people with autism lack a theory of mind). 

Hashiya and kojima (2001) conclude that there is a cognitive weakness for auditory-related tasks in chimpanzees. Chimpanzees exhibited a sharp decline interlude among the sample and selection of alternative exhibitions when the sound was alone, but not when the visual stimulus was alone, that made a contribution as a sample.

Memory in animals

In humans, pictorial recognition is far superior than non pictorial recognition (Vaughan, Jr. and Greene, 1984). Long-term memory capacity in pigeons to complex stimuli was investigated with natural pictures among different birds. It was found that they could have memories about them.

Please note this draft is not finished yet, I am just trying out something.