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Self-Awareness in Primates
... Others did not follow this line of inquiry, such as David Premack, renowned for his research in chimpanzee cognition, who stated: 'Until I can suggest concrete steps in teaching the concept of death without fear I have no intention of imparting the knowledge of mortality to the ape' (Premack, 1976, p. 674). Gordon Gallup, whose insightful experiments with mirror recognition suggested that great apes possess an awareness of self, claimed that apes could very well also have an awareness of death (Gallup, 1979(Gallup, , 1998. ...
... Other researchers have made bolder claims. Gallup (1979Gallup ( , 1998, through his mirror self-recognition experiments on great apes, suggested that with self-awareness comes an awareness of one's own mortality. Premack (1976) raised the possibility of teaching a chimpanzee about its own future death, but dismissed it on ethical grounds, while ASL studies on great apes remain inconclusive (Patterson & Gordon, 1993;Fouts & Mills 1997). ...
For the past two centuries, non‐human primates have been reported to inspect, protect, retrieve, carry or drag the dead bodies of their conspecifics and, for nearly the same amount of time, sparse scientific attention has been paid to such behaviours. Given that there exists a considerable gap in the fossil and archaeological record concerning how early hominins might have interacted with their dead, extant primates may provide valuable insight into how and in which contexts thanatological behaviours would have occurred. First, we outline a comprehensive history of comparative thanatology in non‐human primates, from the earliest accounts to the present, uncovering the interpretations of previous researchers and their contributions to the field of primate thanatology. Many of the typical behavioural patterns towards the dead seen in the past are consistent with those observed today. Second, we review recent evidence of thanatological responses and organise it into distinct terminologies: direct interactions (physical contact with the corpse) and secondary interactions (guarding the corpse, vigils and visitations). Third, we provide a critical evaluation regarding the form and function of the behavioural and emotional aspects of these responses towards infants and adults, also comparing them with non‐conspecifics. We suggest that thanatological interactions: promote a faster re‐categorisation from living to dead, decrease costly vigilant/caregiving behaviours, are crucial to the management of grieving responses, update position in the group's hierarchy, and accelerate the formation of new social bonds. Fourth, we propose an integrated model of Life‐Death Awareness, whereupon neural circuitry dedicated towards detecting life, i.e. the agency system (animate agency, intentional agency, mentalistic agency) works with a corresponding system that interacts with it on a decision‐making level (animate/inanimate distinction, living/dead discrimination, death awareness). Theoretically, both systems are governed by specific cognitive mechanisms (perceptual categories, associative concepts and high‐order reasoning, respectively). Fifth, we present an evolutionary timeline from rudimentary thanatological responses likely occurring in earlier non‐human primates during the Eocene to the more elaborate mortuary practices attributed to genus Homo throughout the Pleistocene. Finally, we discuss the importance of detailed reports on primate thanatology and propose several empirical avenues to shed further light on this topic. This review expands and builds upon previous attempts to evaluate the body of knowledge on this subject, providing an integrative perspective and bringing together different fields of research to detail the evolutionary, sensory/cognitive, developmental and historical/archaeological aspects of primate thanatology. Considering all these findings and given their cognitive abilities, we argue that non‐human primates are capable of an implicit awareness of death.
... Rom this, it follows that the kinds of measures that have been used to demonstrate that infants recognize themselves in delayed stimuli are not suitable to address whether they understand that the image is a former instance of themselves. Although some researchers have speculated that an organism that passes the mark test of self-recognition in mirrors may possess a knowledge of his or her own identity that is continuous in time (see Brooks-Gunn & Lewis, 1984;Gallup, 1979), a more formal analysis reveals that although self-recognition in mirrors requires that an organism must be capable of constructing a representation of at least his 188 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
Eighty-eight young 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were scheduled for 2 testing sessions. On Visit 1, the children were videotaped playing a game while an experimenter covertly placed a large sticker on their head and covertly removed it after the game. One week later, the children were videotaped playing a different game. A sticker was again covertly placed on their heads. Half the children in each age group then observed the video from the previous week, whereas the other half observed the tape from 3 min earlier. Less than half of the 3-year-olds in both conditions reached up for the sticker. In contrast, the majority of 4- and 5-year-olds in the briefly delayed condition reached for the sticker, but few in the extremely delayed condition did so. By 4 years of age, children may have developed a causal understanding of the self’s endurance through time.
... All along, Gallup acknowledged the potential deductive weakness of certain aspects of his arguments (see Gallup, 1977, as well as Gallup, 1979). Nonetheless, as the diversity of primate species unsuccessfully tested for self-recognition continued to widen and as the amount of time and techniques used on them increased, Gallup found it difficult to resist the conclusion that a fundamental cognitive difference related to self-conception separated chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans from most other forms of life. ...
Since Darwin, the idea of intellectual continutiy has gripped comparative psychology. Psychological evolution has been viewd as the accumulation of gradual changes over time, resulting in an unbroken chain of mental capacities throughout the diversity of life. Some researchers have even maintained that no fundamental psychological differences exist among species. An alternative model argues that a rather profound new psychology related to mental state attribution may have evolved recently in the primate order. The author explores recent experiemental research from chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, and children that is consistent with this second model of psychological evolution. Drawing on the fields of developmental, comparative, and social psychology, as well as evolutionary and developmental biology, the author outlines a research agenda aimed at reconstucting the evolution of metacognition.
... 36 Additionally, in a study in the 1970s chimpanzees were first observed showing signs of self-awareness. 37 These discoveries further illustrated the complex lives chimpanzees lead, affected how society saw them, and began changing societal attitudes towards chimp care and use. Additionally, experts in ethology and primatology such as Jane Goodall, Franz De Waal have issued statements advocating the end of chimpanzees in research or the phasing out of their use. ...
The following paper examines how scientific findings and ethical beliefs have affected legislation surrounding the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research within the United States. While there are other laws pertaining to chimpanzees, this paper focuses on those that specifically illustrates a growing concern for chimpanzees used in biomedical research. This paper also reflects on how scientific discoveries have influenced societal attitudes towards chimpanzees and examines how evolving social ethics have culminated in legislation protecting the lives and welfare of chimpanzees in research facilities.
... For instance, I suspect any reader of the target article will readily accept the point that MSR signifies self-awareness when it is defined as becoming the object of one's attention; but I also surmise that many readers will find it difficult to grasp the argument when it includes the claim that MSR also entails thinking about one's own experiences and, on that basis, inferring the existence of equivalent experiences in others (from now on this is referred to as Gallup and Anderson's "mentalistic view"). This is probably so because the argument is not fully presented in the reviewed article but elaborated in several prior ones (e.g., Gallup, 1968Gallup, , 1970Gallup, , 1975Gallup, , 1977Gallup, , 1979Gallup, , 1982Gallup, , 1985Gallup, , and 1997. ...
The mentalistic interpretation of mirror self-recognition (MSR) is once more evoked in a recent article by Gallup and Anderson (2020). This view suggests that successful MSR signifies that the organism can become the object of its own attention in the sense that it can reflect on its own mental states and that of other creatures. Here, I reevaluate this claim in light of other compelling views of MSR; one main conclusion is that MSR most likely entails bodily awareness as opposed to introspective private self-awareness; the latter arguably requires language in the form of inner speech, which many creatures capable of MSR lack. I further raise three specific problems with the mentalistic approach—the large time gap that exists between the emergence of MSR and the full establishment of Theory-of-Mind (ToM) skills, the fact that MSR can be observed in the absence of self-awareness, and vice versa, and the claim that self-processing is localized in the right hemisphere. The quest for a nonverbal gold standard test for self-awareness is still on and might reside in the comparison of brain activity between human and nonhuman animals observed during access to one’s mental states (Bekoff & Sherman, 2004).
... Or take, finally, the key assertion in an influential, and otherwise excellent, education treatise, that, of all the animals, "man is the only one to treat not only his actions but his very self as the object of his reflection." A passing acquaintance with ape behavior and, especially, with Gordon Gallup's work on self-awareness in chimpanzees and orangutans (Gallup, 1979), would have surely led this author to qualify both this statement and its implications. ...
The frequently-encountered wholesale dismissal of either interdisciplinary knowledge or research reflects a profound misunderstanding of their vital contributions to scholarship, society, and individuals. This article presents the only self-contained, comprehensive defense of interdisciplinary knowledge and research, arguing that they are important because: 1. Creativity often requires interdisciplinary knowledge. 2. Immigrants often make important contributions to their new field. 3. Disciplinarians often commit errors which can be best detected by people familiar with two or more disciplines. 4. Some worthwhile topics of research fall in the interstices among the traditional disciplines. 5. Many intellectual, social, and practical problems require interdisciplinary approaches. 6. Interdisciplinary knowledge and research serve to remind us of the unity-of-knowledge ideal. 7. Interdisciplinarians enjoy greater flexibility in their research. 8. More so than narrow disciplinarians, interdisciplinarians often treat themselves to the intellectual equivalent of traveling in new lands. 9. Interdisciplinarians may help breach communication gaps in the modern academy, thereby helping to mobilize its enormous intellectual resources in the cause of greater social rationality and justice. 10. By bridging fragmented disciplines, interdisciplinarians might play a role in the defense of academic freedom. The case against interdisciplinary knowledge and research is made up of many intrinsic drawbacks and practical barriers. Taken together, these rewards, drawbacks, and barriers suggest a mild shift in the contemporary world of learning towards interdisciplinary knowledge and research.
... Meistens reagieren Tiere auf ein Spiegelbild, als batten sie einen fremden Artgenossen vor sich. Schimpansen aber, denen im Schlaf rote Tupfen ins Gesicht gemalt wurden (Gallup, 1979), beruhrten diese Stellen wiederholt, als sie sich im Spiegel betrachten durften. Dieses Verhalten wurde als ein Sicherkennen im Spiegel gedeutet. ...
... The notion of universality includes oneself, and integral to a mature human concept of death is the knowledge that oneself will die. Although chimpanzees have been credited with the capacity to know that they will die [144], there is no strong evidence for such knowledge, and in the absence of adequately language-competent chimpanzees it is hard to see how we could be sure. Again, it might be useful to rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil. ...
Information about responses to death in nonhuman primates is important for evolutionary thanatology. This paper reviews the major causes of death in chimpanzees, and how these apes respond to cues related to dying and death. Topics covered include disease, human activities, predation, accidents and intra-species aggression and cannibalism. Chimpanzees also kill and sometimes eat other species. It is argued that, given their cognitive abilities, their experiences of death in conspecifics and other species are likely to equip chimpanzees with an understanding of death as cessation of function and irreversible. Whether they might understand that death is inevitable—including their own death, and biological causes of death is also discussed. As well as gathering more fundamental information about responses to dying and death, researchers should pay attention to possible cultural variations in how great apes deal with death.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary thanatology: impacts of the dead on the living in humans and other animals’.
... Véase, para terminar, la afirmación clave de un tratado sobre educación influyente, y por lo demás excelente, según la que, entre todos los animales, "el hombre es el único que trata no solo a sus acciones sino a su propio ser como objeto de reflexión". Si el autor hubiera tenido un conocimiento, aun superficial, de la conducta de los simios y, en particular, del trabajo de Gordon Gallup sobre la conciencia de sí mismos de los chimpancés y los orangutanes (Gallup, 1979), este habría matizado, con toda seguridad, tanto la afirmación como sus consecuencias. ...
El desprecio generalizado hacia la investigación y el conocimiento interdisciplinarios refleja una profunda incomprensión de los vitales aportes que han hecho al mundo académico, a la sociedad y a las personas. El presente artículo presenta la única defensa abarcativa y autocontenida de la investigación y el conocimiento interdisciplinarios. Se argumenta que estos son importantes por las siguientes razones. 1. La creatividad a menudo tiene como prerrequisito el conocimiento interdisciplinario. 2. Los inmigrantes suelen hacer importantes aportes a su nuevo campo. 3. Los individuos que tienen familiaridad con dos o tres disciplinas son quienes están en mejores condiciones de detectar los errores que cometen a menudo los integrantes de las disciplinas. 4. Algunos temas valiosos de investigación caen en los intersticios que separan las disciplinas tradicionales. 5. Numerosos problemas intelectuales, sociales y prácticos requieren un abordaje interdisciplinario. 6. La investigación y el conocimiento interdisciplinarios sirven para recordarnos el ideal de unidad del conocimiento. 7. Los interdisciplinarios gozan de mayor flexibilidad en sus investigaciones. 8. Los interdisciplinarios se reservan el placer, en términos intelectuales, de una permanente exploración de tierras exóticas con más frecuencia que quienes se limitan a lo disciplinario. 9. Los interdisciplinarios pueden ayudar a zanjar problemas de comunicación en el mundo académico moderno, contribuyendo así a movilizar sus enormes recursos intelectuales en aras de una mayor justicia y racionalidad sociales. 10. Al establecer puentes entre disciplinas fragmentadas, los interdisciplinarios pueden cumplir un papel en la defensa de la libertad académica. La crítica de la investigación y el conocimiento académicos se compone de numerosas desventajas intrínsecas y escollos prácticos. Considerados juntos, los escollos, gratificaciones y desventajas sugieren la necesidad de un cambio moderado en el mundo contemporáneo del conocimiento en cuanto a la investigación y el conocimiento interdisciplinarios. —Es realmente hermoso vuestro planeta. ¿Tiene océanos? —No puedo saberlo –contestó el geógrafo. —¡Ah! –exclamó el principito decepcionado.– ¿Tiene montañas? —Tampoco puedo saberlo –dijo el geógrafo. —¿Ciudades, ríos y desiertos? —¿Y cómo podría saberlo? —¿Pero acaso no eres geógrafo? –preguntó disconforme el principito.
... My original interests in the relation between time and the self-concept concerned chimpanzees, not human children. My curiosities about these matters were sparked many years ago after reading an article by Gordon G. Gallup, Jr. (1979), in which he had summarized his experiments showing that chimpanzees, but not most other primates, were capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors. To Gallup, this suggested that these apes might share with humans a kind of self-concept. ...
... Moving further toward the human, we might ask what distinguishes beings who are self-conscious, who can think themselves as separate from the worlds that they inhabit and thus consciously make choices about their course of action. Gordon Gallup (1979) famously operationalized self-consciousness by placing mirrors in front of various animals and studying their reactions. Only a few animals (chimpanzees but not monkeys, for example) demonstrated the capacity to recognize that the creature in the mirror was itself rather than another animal. ...
Two articles in the special section on knot-work in this journal (Hau 2014, volume 4, issue 3) take issue with the “posthumanism” of Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory (ANT). Arguing that Latour’s conception of agency undermines critical attitudes toward capitalism, they insist on an all-or-nothing, accept or reject attitude toward Latour’s work. In this article, I sketch an alternative vantage on questions of nonhuman agency and Latour’s oeuvre, which, though critical, is much less polemic. While proposing an intermediate stance for framing a theorization of agency, I conclude that it is not ANT’s theorization of agency that inhibits critical ethnographers of capitalism but rather habits in its application that derive, in part, from ANT’s insistence on painstaking ethnographic research.
... Many researchers (Beck, 1980;de Waal, 1982;Gallup, 1979;Humphrey, 1976) attribute tool-manufacturing and tool-using skills of chimpanzees to cognitive sophistication that has evolved as a consequence of selection on primates in general, and chimpanzees in particular, for ability to solve social problems. This argument is not sufficient by itself to explain why capuchins should display the unusual ability to manufacture tools and an unusual propensity to use them. ...
... Of course this could only be considered as a very primitive "mental image". However, recent experiments with chimpanzees have shown that they can demonstrate intentionality (Menzel and Halperin, 1975), that they are capable of self-awareness (Gallup, 1979), and that they can learn to use surprisingly large vocabularies of artificial languages to communicate complex messages (Gardner and Gardner, 1975). This adds up to something much closer to human mental experience. ...
The question of animal rights is discussed in relation to man’s evolutionary history as a predator and exploiter of other species. It is suggested that, providing man attempts to eliminate suffering from the animals with which he is dealing, there is no reason why he should not exploit them. However, decisions on the degree to which, and the manner in which, we exploit animals are ethical decisions that should be made by society in general, but only when it has a knowledge of the facts.
Some definitions of animal welfare are given, and the need for objectivity in debates on welfare is emphasized. Although it may be possible in the future to gain some insight into the subjective feelings of domestic fowl, including whether or not they are suffering mentally, at the present time the scientist is restricted to producing factual evidence on their health, production, physiology, biochemistry, and behavior.
Three methods for assessing the welfare of poultry using behavior are described and discussed. One method is to look for unusual or inappropriate behavioral changes and show independently that they are indicative of reduced welfare. A second method is to allow the bird to choose its own environment and assume that it will choose in the best interests of its welfare. A third method is to subject birds experimentally to stressful situations such as deprivation, frustration, or fright, observe their behavior, and compare it to that which occurs under commercial conditions. To date this method has been the most successful in helping to assess the welfare of poultry.
... (Damasio 1999, ????) Is it at all conceivable, given Damasio's demand for having a sense of self in an act of wordless knowing, that any other species than our own could have evolved self-consciousness? In an elegant experiment, psychologist Gordon Gallup of State University of New York at Albany demonstrated that indeed great apes as our closest biological relatives have evolved a level of cognition that fulfills the requirements presented by Damasio (Gallup 1970). He noticed that monkeys and apes differed in their responses to their own image in mirrors. ...
... Perhaps more commonly, though, many modern psychologists have simply rejecred the principle ofparsimony. For example, Gallup (1979) has noted that, unlike other animals, a chimpan zee that has been exposed to a mirror for a long period of time will come to treat its mirror image as an image of its own body. From this he infers the existence of a "cognitive entity" called the "self-concept," which he then proposes as the explanation for the chimpanzee's behavior. ...
A modern principle of parsimony may be stated as follows: Where we have no reason to do otherwise and where two theories account for the same facts, we should prefer the one which is briefer, which makes assumptions with which we can easily dispense, which refers to observables, and which has the greatest possible generality_Psychologists often violate this principle, particularly in attributing complex behavior to cognitive processes. The practice is exemplified by recent accounts of chimpanzee behavior. In this essay I first develop a modem variant of what has been called the "principle of parsimony" by commenting on a quotation on the nature of science by Ernst Mach. I then briefly trace the history of the concept in modem psychology and, subsequently, apply the concept to recent research with both chimpanzees and pigeons. No defense of the principle is offered, for, as I note below, I believe that no definitive defense is possible and acknowledge that the principle does not guarantee that a theory will be adequate or correct (cf. Barker, 1961; Goodman, 1972; Sober, 1981; Sober and Lewontin, 1982).1 simply assume it, as did Ockham and others, as a first principle, one which, in the absense ofarguments to the contrary, must always be applied.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
Two areas of research for testing Nell's theory are suggested. One is cruelty's seemingly negative correlation with age, which would confirm its linkage with testosterone, sex, and dominance. The other is the special field of leisure activity called thanatourism, that is, the transformation of loci of human horror into tourist attractions.
... It is possible that the jays may simply have habituated to the mirror image, and might therefore have ceased to respond to it as a competitor. It should be noted, however, that while the jays had been exposed to a mirror for a period of 12-hours prior to this experiment , many species fail to habituate to a mirror image even when exposed to a mirror for over 20,000 hours (Anderson, 1983(Anderson, , 1984Gallup, 1979). Alternatively, the storer might perceive the ''conspecific'' in the mirror to be preoccupied by their own caching behaviour, and therefore to pose little threat as a potential thief. ...
Food-caching scrub-jays hide food for future consumption and rely on memory to recover their caches at a later date. These caches are susceptible to pilfering by other individuals, however. Consequently, jays engage in a number of counter-strategies to protect their hidden items, caching most of them behind barriers, or using shade and distance as a way of reducing what the potential pilferer might see. Jays do not place all their caches in one place, perhaps because unpredictability provides the best insurance against pilfering. Furthermore, after being observed by a potential pilferer at the time of caching, jays re-hide food in new places. Importantly, however, jays only re-cache food if they have been observed during caching and only if they have stolen another bird's caches in the past. Naïve birds that have no thieving experience do not do so. The inference is that jays with prior experience of stealing others' caches engage in experience projection, relating information about their previous experience as a pilferer to the possibility of future cache theft by another bird. These results raise the intriguing possibility that re-caching is based on a form of mental attribution, namely the simulation of another bird's viewpoint.
... Literature was reviewed using the online databases Web of Science and PubMed. For the purposes of this article, the term empathy refers to a range of skills that include both emotional and cognitive components (Gallup, 1979;Rankin, Kramer, & Miller, 2005;Singer, 2006;Smith, 2006). It is important to distinguish this definition of empathy and empathic skills from conceptualizations of empathy as positive social-emotional mental connections that foster cooperation, altruism, and well-being of the recipient (e.g., Baron-Cohen, 2011). ...
Empirical evidence and therapeutic interactions have suggested that individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) may demonstrate enhancements in aspects of social-emotional cognition. To assess the empirical evidence for this phenomenon, and to comprehensively evaluate alternative hypotheses for its possible role in BPD etiology and symptoms, the authors systematically searched the literature for investigations of empathy in BPD and reviewed 28 studies assessing a range of empathic abilities. Considered together, these data demonstrated comparable levels of evidence for enhanced, preserved, and reduced empathic skills in individuals with BPD. Evidence for empathic enhancements is thus substantial but inconsistent across studies, being found mainly under more socially interactive experimental paradigms. Based on the results of the review and previous explanations for BPD symptoms, the authors propose a new model for explaining the borderline paradox: that a combination of increased attention to social stimuli and dysfunctional social information processing may account in part for the specific empathic enhancements and reduced overall social functioning in BPD.
... i 53). Griffin (l976, 1978), Gallup (1975Gallup ( , 1979, Savage-Rumbaugh (1981), Terrace (1984), Roitblat (1982), Sober (1983), and many others have called for the return of the comparative study of mind. The return seems inevitable. ...
The plight of modern comparative psychology is rooted in part in the destructive effect that early behaviorism had on the field. Early in the 20th century, Mercier, Dunlap, Kuo, and others proposed the creation of a new, multidisciplinary science devoted to the study of behavior. Watson derailed this effort by insisting that psychology should adopt behavior as its subject matter and that it should abandon the study of mind. Watson's proposal isolated the study of behavior from the biological sciences and led to an incessant and unproductive battle between behaviorists and cognitivists, in which the latter have emerged the victors. Because comparative psychology has remained for the most part the comparative study of animal behavior, it has suffered greatly both by the field's isolation from biology and by the emergence of a strong cognitive psychology. The comparative study of mind will undoubtedly flourish in modern psychology, but the comparative study of behavior should be part of a new, comprehensive, multidisciplinary science of behavior, along the lines suggested by Kuo. Efforts are underway to establish such a science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Many researchers (Beck, 1980;de Waal, 1982;Gallup, 1979;Humphrey, 1976) attribute tool-manufacturing and tool-using skills of chimpanzees to cognitive sophistication that has evolved as a consequence of selection on primates in general, and chimpanzees in particular, for ability to solve social problems. This argument is not sufficient by itself to explain why capuchins should display the unusual ability to manufacture tools and an unusual propensity to use them. ...
In this report we describe the manufacture and use of tools in captive groups of tufted capuchin monkeys (
Cebus apella). Apparatus designed to accommodate probing and sponging behaviors were introduced into the monkeys' home cage with materials provided for fashioning tools. In one group of 9 capuchins, 6 were successful in manufacturing and using probes, and in a second group, 4 of 5 capuchins were successful in using probes, and 3 in manufacturing them. In a follow-up study with the larger group of capuchins, 8 monkeys were successful in manufacturing sponging tools from paper towels. Our studies provide the first report of spontaneous manufacture of tools in any group of monkeys. The tool-using and manufacturing behaviors observed in the capuchins were similar in form, function, and ontogeny to those that have previously been reported for chimpanzees. Our results provide further evidence that capuchins possess extensive manipulative propensities and emphasize the significance of the normal social environment in the full expression of these propensities. Finally, we spell out some directions future research could take in developing an understanding of the psychological characteristics underlying tool-related behaviors in diverse species. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
The definition of cruelty used by the author is broad and ambiguous and does not distinguish between acts of sadism, abuse, and neglect that all lead to the suffering of other beings. Some of the research involving animal cruelty is reviewed with the aim of raising questions about the relevance of the pain–blood–death (PBD) complex described by Nell.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
Research on aggression and terror management theory suggests shortcomings in Nell's analysis of cruelty. Hostile aggression and exposure to aggressive cues are not inherently reinforcing, though they may be enjoyed if construed within a meaningful cultural framework. Terror management research suggests that human cruelty stems from the desire to defend one's cultural worldview and to participate in a heroic triumph over evil.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
A Rousseauist bias towards the study of human aggression has treated it as a regrettable anomaly rather than a volatile reflection of important forces in human evolution. Intrepidly, Nell displays the arc of connection between predation in humans and other animals and the neurophysiological factors that underlie chronic interest in accident, death, and harsh force.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
Nell proposes another myth about human aggression, following thousands of old myths from Homer to Lorenz. Like all myths, this one might be partially true and partially false. However, the use of emotional and propagandistic effects, rather than evaluation of empirical results, obscures any attempt to describe the truth about cruelty.
It is … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Macbeth , Act 5, Scene 5
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
The impulse toward violence and cruelty is endemic to the human species. But so, likewise, is the impulse toward compassionate behavior. Victor Nell acknowledges this, but he does not explore the matter any further. I supplement his account by discussing how compassion, specifically in the moral education of children, can help remedy the problem of violence and cruelty in society.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
Human beings, like chimpanzees, deliberately kill their own species in order to expand their territory. For a self-aware social animal to attack its own kind, it would need to evolve a mechanism to dehumanize, or “dechimpanzee-ize” those it attacks. It is suggested that cruelty reflects such an evolved predisposition. The implications for violence prevention are discussed.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
Recent findings in anthrozoology – the study of human–animal interactions – shed light on psychological and social aspects of cruelty. Here we briefly discuss four areas that connect animal cruelty and cruelty directed toward humans: (1) voices of perpetrators and their audiences, (2) gender differences in cruelty, (3) cruelty as play, and (4) the putative relationship between animal abuse and interpersonal violence.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
There are few commonalities between intraspecific aggression and predation and few convincing arguments for the conceptualisation of blood and pain as rewards for predation. Not cruelty, but ritualised intraspecific aggression is the predominant mechanism of accretion of social power and this, not cruelty, is what bestows reproductive advantages. Enjoyment of media cruelty is not reinforced by “emotional circuits” adapted to predation, but represents transient relief from culturally determined inhibition of aggression.
... Chimpanzees demonstrate self-awareness (Gallup 1982). It seems reasonable to postulate that for an intelligent, intensely social animal to kill another member of its own species, it will require a brain mechanism which in specific circumstances enables it to "de-identify" the animal it is attacking as a member of its own species. ...
Presentation of evidence from multiple disciplines is the most impressive feature of Nell's article. I have observations and objections, however, about the following issues: (1) violence as a by-product of cruelty; (2) the equation of animal and human cruelty; (3) social psychological evidence contrary to the biological model; (4) whether prevention of cruelty best arises from predispositional or situational factors.
It is usually thought that synchronicity, characterised as 'meaningful coincidence', is therefore understandable in relation to the concept of 'meaning'. I will explore the largely unhelpful symbiotic relationship between 'coincidence' and 'meaning' by comparing synchronicity with synchoricity - coincidence in space rather than time. These two concepts are often mixed together and I will attempt to describe a 'pure' synchronicity in order to sharpen our sense of how meaning is felt to arise from coincidence. It will then be suggested that the standard concept of synchronicity is mostly psychologically irrelevant and, when adjusted to remove elements which are explained quite naturally by evolutionary theory, we are left with a concept which has implications both for the metaphysical foundations of Analytical Psychology and the individualistic emphasis one commonly finds in the field.
© 2019, The Society of Analytical Psychology.
Human‐animal chimeras—creatures composed of a mix of animal and human cells—have come to play an important role in biomedical research, and they raise ethical questions. This article focuses on one particularly difficult set of questions—those related to the moral status of human‐animal chimeras with brains that are partly or wholly composed of human cells. Given the uncertain effects of human‐animal chimera research on chimeric animals’ cognition, it would be prudent to ensure we do not overlook or underestimate their moral status. However, to assess moral status, we first need to determine what kinds of capacities are morally relevant. The standard view holds that it matters, morally, if chimeric animals develop uniquely human cognitive capacities. I argue that this view is mistaken, highlighting three problems with it: that we can think of examples of uniquely human cognitive capacities that are not morally significant, that we can think of examples of morally significant cognitive capacities that are not uniquely human, and that evidence that some cognitive capacity is shared with nonhuman animals does not undermine claims that this capacity is morally significant. We need a better framework for thinking about the moral status of part‐human beings.
Paranormal beliefs are of interest for the college students especially studying psychology and philosophy. In addition, attitudes such as parental bonding and adult attachment affect levels of paranormal beliefs. Exploring the relationships among these principal themes is of great importance in illuminating possible effects of students’ attachments and bonding toward the development of paranormal beliefs. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among students’ parental attachment, relationship attitude, and paranormal beliefs; 239 university students responded to the items in three separate questionnaires, the Paranormal Belief Scale, parental bonding, and adult attachment survey. The research findings showed that a significant relationship exists between paranormal beliefs and attachment attitudes in the favor of females. In terms of the relationship between paranormal beliefs and adult attachment, the results also revealed that they have akin relationships between adult attachment and parental bonding. Although adult relationships affect paranormal beliefs, no significant correlation was found among three areas possible because the effect of parental bonding is limited in the long term.
This paper briefly examines some of the inconsistencies and distortions associated with Bowd’s (1980) opposition to psychological research on animals. By examining the vast amount of neglected animal suffering which occurs as a consequence of human existence, coupled with the potential benefits of animal research, we argue that the efforts of many animal rights advocates are misconstrued and misdirected. Moreover, the evolution of moral and ethical behavior in man may be such that it is not applicable to other species. While we do not condone needless suffering in animals and would welcome the suggestion of viable alternatives, we argue that there is far more of a moral imperative to continue to do animal research than to abandon it.
The plight of modern comparative psychology is rooted in part in the destructive effect that early behaviorism had on the field. Early in the 20th century, Mercier, Dunlap, Kuo, and others proposed the creation of a new, multidisciplinary science devoted to the study of behavior. Watson derailed this effort by insisting that psychology should adopt behavior as its subject matter and that it should abandon the study of mind. Watson's proposal isolated the study of behavior from the biological sciences and led to an incessant and unproductive battle between behaviorists and cognitivists, in which the latter have emerged the victors. Because comparative psychology has remained for the most part the comparative study of animal behavior, it has suffered greatly both by the field's isolation from biology and by the emergence of a strong cognitive psychology. The comparative study of mind will undoubtedly flourish in modern psychology, but the comparative study of behavior should be part of a new, comprehensive, multidisciplinary science of behavior, along the lines suggested by Kuo. Efforts are underway to establish such a science.
General process learning reflects advanced cognitive capacities which may be supposed to derive from a single evolutionary history. It is divided into cases where the complexity resides in the stimulus situation, in the response to be made, or in the cognitive processing that is required to get from one to the other. In all these cases there is substantial evidence of capacities for complex learning in a variety of nonmammalian vertebrates, especially birds; but it is not at present possible to make strong links between the kind of learning capacity shown and either taxonomic status or ecological niche.
In humans, self-recognition of own reflection is commonplace but not universal. The capacity to recognize self in a mirror appears to be subject to maturational and experiential constraints. In the first place, the ability to correctly interpret mirrored information about the self presupposes prior experience with mirrors. For instance, people born with congenital visual defects who undergo operations in later life—which provide for normal sight—respond just like nonhumans and initially react to themselves in mirrors as though they were seeing other people. Social behavior in response to mirrors begins at about six months of age, but the average child does not start to show reliable signs of self-recognition until 18 to 24 months. A prevailing view of self-concept formation in humans is that the sense of self emerges out of a social milieu. Self-awareness according to this view is a by-product of social interaction with others. For instance, according to G.H. Mead, in order for the self to emerge as an object of conscious inspection, it requires the opportunity to see yourself as you are seen by others.
This book provides both a review of the literature and a theoretical framework for understanding the development of visual attention from infancy through early childhood, including the development of selective and state-related aspects in infants and young children as well as the emergence of higher controls on attention. They explore individual differences in attention and possible origins of ADHD.
Major directions of studies on the complex behavioral forms in anthropoid apes are presented, such as tool-using activity, language learning with the aid of gestures and signs symbolizing words, comparison and generalization of signals by relative and identical features, discrimination of quantitative features of the signals, social behavior, etc. It follows from the review of literature that the interest in the problem of evolution of the intellect as well as of the zoosocial intragroup relations in anthropoids does not decrease. Meanwhile, this problem remains not only actual but also one of the most complicated ones. The most interesting and the least studied seems to be the investigation of various forms of social behavior and formation of intellectual capabilities in ontogenesis of chimpanzees.
Enterprises such as cognitive psychology, neomentalism, problem-solving research, information-system modeling, and artificial intelligence have gained much prominence since 1950; collectively, they amount to a new psychological school, cognitivism. Each of these enterprises uses the word cognitive in a special (nondictionary) sense, which indicates its positive contributions to the study of so-called cognitive phenomena (perception, attention, memory, and thinking) as well as opposition to (a) the peripheralism and associationism of Hullian behavior theory and (b) the antitheoretical stance of Skin-nerian neobehaviorism. A close and critical examination indicates that, apart from considerable contribution of the cognitivist movement to developing empirical principles and technological applications, there is no substantial or compelling evidence that cognitivistic constructs have advanced our theoretical understanding of psychological phenomena. Further, by remaining parochial, cognitivists have failed to promote the formulation of a comprehensive framework that would integrate their work with the main body of established knowledge in the fields of learning, motivation, response production, and neuropsychological processes. There is, thus, little reason to believe that cognitive psychology or cognitive science will incorporate or become the psychology of the future, or will continue its ascendancy. Behind the recent bandwagon excitement of cognitivism, work toward a general psychological theory, incorporating gains made by all psychological enterprises, has continued, and this will probably remain the most promising approach to understanding mind.
When we attempt to infer from an animal’s overt behavior whether its brain might be thinking or merely computing, a variety of intuitively suggestive lines of evidence become unreliable. Many behavioral traits such as adaptive behavior, behavioral variability, complexity, flexibility (including learning), and even the phenomenon of culture can be — and in insects at least have been proven to be — the results of genetic programming. The demonstrated effects of programming can be so intricate and subtle that even what seems to be insight or creativity must be suspect. A versatile and more reliable guide to the inner workings of minds is communication. Experimental manipulations of signals can show, through their effects on the behavior of the receiver, how the incoming information is being processed. This line of inquiry has laid open much of the insect mind, particularly that of the honey bee, but no compelling evidence for awareness has emerged. Instead, insects stand more than ever as testaments to the power of blind behavioral programming, and as such remind us to be wary of attributing to vertebrates anything more than larger, more interesting on-board computers.
We propose that the ability to be consciously aware of one’s own and others’ emotions is a unique human capacity. Emotion may be divided into implicit (visceromotor and somatomotor) and explicit (conscious feeling and reflective awareness) components. Based on a brain model of implicit and explicit emotional processing and an evolutionary perspective on the frontal lobe and human cognition, it is proposed that human emotion has a visceromotor and somatomotor foundation that is likely shared with other mammals. What may be unique to human cognition is the ability to engage in shared intensions and collaborative activities, which includes a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experiences and activities with other persons. The capacity for shared emotional experiences (knowing that you and the other person are experiencing the same feelings) likely requires mediation by a mentalizing network that includes the medial prefrontal cortex. We review evidence that humans appear to be unique in being able to reflect upon their own emotions, to generate a complex range of differentiated experiences, to appreciate complexity in the emotional experiences of other people, and to intentionally and knowingly share emotional experiences with other people. However, individual differences in this capacity among people are considerable. Although emotional awareness promotes self-regulation and adapative social behavior, impairments in this function can lead to social isolation, mental illness and adverse physical health consequences. We propose that the unique human ability to be emotionally aware requires mediation by the medial prefrontal cortex (BA10), a structure that is far more developed in humans than in other species, but also requires advantageous ontogenetic experiences. Such experiences include a particular type of mentalizing (accurate cognitive empathy) by parents and other caretakers, mediated in part by this same medial prefrontal cortical structure, in order for the full function of this capacity to be realized.
Only a few nonhuman species (chimpanzees and orangutans) have displayed mirror-image recognition of themselves by grooming at a spot that can only be seen with the mirror. Pygmy marmosets have never been observed to self-groom, but they do behave toward mirrors in a manner suggestive of the early stages of mirror-image recognition. They displayed a rapid extinction of social threat responses to their own image and of novelty responses to mirrors, but continued to show mirror-specific responses such as following their own image, playing peek-a-boo, and looking at their image throughout a 28-day period of mirror exposure. The pygmy marmosets used a mirror to locate otherwise unseen conspecifics from other groups and directed threat responses toward the real location of these animals rather than to their mirror-image. Pygmy marmosets displayed the precursor behaviors to mirror-image recognition.
We made an observational study of spontaneous imitation in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Previous studies may have underestimated great apes' imitative capacities by studying subjects under inhibiting conditions. We used subjects living in enriched environments, namely, rehabilitation. We collected a sample of spontaneous imitations and analyzed the most complex incidents for the likelihood that true imitation, learning new actions by observing rather than by doing, was involved in their acquisition. From 395 hr of observation and other reports on 26 orangutans, we identified 354 incidents of imitation. Of these, 54 complex incidents were difficult to explain by forms of imitation based on associative processes grounded in experiential learning alone; they were, however, congruent with acquisition processes that include true imitation. These findings suggest that orangutans may be capable of true imitation and point to critical eliciting factors.
A fashionable view in comparative psychology states that primates possess self-awareness because they exhibit mirror self-recognition (MSR), which in turn makes it possible to infer mental states in others ("Theory-of-Mind"; ToM). In cognitive neuroscience, an increasingly popular position holds that the right hemisphere represents the center of self-awareness because MSR and ToM tasks presumably increase activity in that hemisphere. In this chapter I critically assess these two claims as follows. MSR should not be equated with full-blown self- awareness; for instance, evidence suggests that MSR only requires kinesthetic self-knowledge and does not involve access to one's mental events. ToM and self-awareness are fairly independent and should also not be taken as equivalent notions; to illustrate, ToM implies a focus of attention on others, not on the self, whereas self-awareness exclusively entails self-focus. MSR and ToM tasks engage medial and left brain areas—not sites solely located in the right hemisphere, as recent meta-analyses of brain-imaging studies clearly show. Other self- awareness tasks besides MSR and ToM tasks (e.g., self-description, autobiography) mostly recruit medial and left brain areas. And inner speech, produced by the left hemisphere and which primates lack, plays a significant role in self-referential activity; indeed, accidental loss of inner speech following brain injury leads to self-awareness deficits. The conclusions I will reach based on this analysis is that (1) primates that display MSR most probably do not possess introspective self-awareness, and (2) self-related processes most likely engage a distributed network of brain regions situated in both hemispheres.
Recognition of one's own reflection in a mirror qualifies as an objective test of self-awareness. Although most primates appear incapable of learning that their behavior is the source of the behavior depicted in a mirror, the present study replicates previous reports showing that both chimpanzees and orangutans are capable of self-recognition. As the only remaining species of great ape, gorillas were also systematically tested with mirrors. Using a specially designed control procedure which provides independent evidence of interest in and motivation to touch unobtrusively applied marks used to assess self-recognition, gorillas appeared unable to correctly decipher mirrored information about themselves.
Where direct experimentation is impossible, astronomy, meteorology, evolutionary biology, and other sciences have long relied on the simulation as a tool for testing theories. Conjectures about the origins of certain human behaviors can be tested using carefully constructed simulations with nonhuman animal subjects. The adequacy of such simulations depends on a number of criteria, but even successful simulations that satisfy all of these criteria are not sufficient to prove the original conjectures. Rather, successful simulations provide mere "plausibility proofs." The Columban simulations are a set of studies of varying degrees of adequacy in which complex, novel behavior in human subjects has been investigated with pigeons. Though computer simulations are, in general, invaluable, computer simulations of cognition are, as simulations, inadequate. The computer metaphor of human intelligence can be traced to a faulty syllogism that pervades the cognitive science literature.
Mammalian brains contain a variety of self-centered socio-emotional systems. An understanding of how they interact with more recent cognitive structures may be essential for understanding empathy. Preston & de Waal have neglected this vast territory of proximal brain issues in their analysis.
Only a broad theory that looks across levels of analysis can encompass the many perspectives on the phenomenon of empathy. We address the major points of our commentators by emphasizing that the basic perception-action process, while automatic, is subject to control and modulation, and is greatly affected by experience and context because of the role of representations. The model can explain why empathy seems phenomenologically more effortful than reflexive, and why there are different levels of empathy across individuals, ages, and species.
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