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Edited Wikipedia page
Animal Cognition

Revised Paper
Animal Consciousness and Cognition: What are the Advantages?

Ancient western perspective used to consider animals as emotionless, non-feeling machines based on the view that only humans have soul. With Darwin coming up with his theory of evolution and natural selection, this perspective has later been proven otherwise, that since humans and some other nonhuman animals may evolved from a common ancestor, they may also acquire feelings to some extent during their evolutionary process (Gould 2004). Today, more and more studies in the field of ethology and behavioral science proved that humans are not the only creature that has a conscious mind, but animals also acquire certain levels of consciousness and cognitive abilities as well. However how did consciousness and cognition arise during the evolutionary process? How are scientists able to define consciousness and cognition, and distinguish them from conditional response to stimulus? How does having a conscious mind and cognitive abilities help animals gain advantage to live longer to their reproductive age and pass down offspring? These questions will be discussed in this paper.

First of all, in order to discuss this topic, we have to define what consciousness is. Since there is no precise scientific definition for the term “consciousness”, what is left here is how this word is used to describe mental states. The two commonly used terms in behavioral science is perceptual consciousness and reflective consciousness. Perceptual consciousness is the awareness of one’s sensory perceptions, which means that the individual is aware that it itself is processing information. Reflective consciousness includes not only the awareness of one’s sensory input, thoughts and decisions making, but also includes the capability to perceive other’s minds. Because these two types of consciousness can be applied across species with different physiologies, they are commonly used in the studies of animal minds (Pepperberg et al, 2000). Now we have the definition of consciousness, but how can its existence in animals be proven? The standard behavioral index of consciousness in humans is called the “Accurate Report”, which is reporting an event accurately in any kind of voluntary response (Seth et al. 2004). However this could not generally apply to other species, since their methods of expressing feelings or knowledge may be different to humans and can be subjected to misinterpretation. Simply knowing that an individual is aware of its environment cannot prove it is conscious, because some of the responses triggered by stimuli can happen unconsciously (Cotterill 2001). Therefore there is a need to look for subtexts consciousness, or responses that are actual results of consciousness, like actions that can be linked to previous experiences, interpretation of other’s intentions, predictions based on current circumstances, or planning forward in the mind. Experiments are designed to test if animals occupy these kinds of abilities, and to what extent they can utilize these abilities.

According to Pepperberg’s theory, different extents of consciousness can be classified into five levels of awareness (Pepperberg et al, 2000). Here is an experiment demonstrating the ability of simple associative learning in rats. When the rats pressed down on a lever in the form of a green block, they were rewarded with food, and they eventually learned to press the green block to obtain food (Squire et al,1993). This experiment showed the rats were likely to respond based on a habit system; however it did not exhibit if the rats can apply the concept of “green” or “block” across different sets of situations. This fits the description of the first level of awareness, which is the ability to follow a simple rule involving perception of a specific item and its avoidance. The second level of awareness involves not only the knowledge that a rule exists with respect to "likeness/familiarity", but also can transfer the rule across situations. Here is another example showing rats executing a more complicated mind plot. The subjected rats were put in an 8 armed maze which visual cues were scattered throughout. The rats were allowed to explore the maze, and they got rewarded for choosing an arm different than one that they had chosen before. The rats soon learned to choose different arms each time after they explore the end of the arm and returned to the central platform, and had high accuracy for choosing more than 7 different arms within the first 8 tries out of the given total 16 tries. This result suggested that the rats had the ability to form a mental map, and apply it to different situations (Olton 1976). The third level of awareness requires the subject to integrate two different sets of stored information, for example, a chimpanzee which learned the concept of “category”. In Savage-Rumbaugh’s study in 1980, three chimpanzees were taught to categorize six different objects as edible and inedible. Later, they were asked to categorize 17 other objects that were not shown previously during the training, and were able to sort these objects appropriately. This means that they have the ability to compare different sets of previously learned information, and discover similarities between those and the new objects (Savage-Rumbaugh et al, 1980). Fourth level awareness not only involves distinguishing between categories, but also maintaining the perception of category while completing another task, like enumeration. After training, an African Grey Parrot named Alex was able to tell the number of blue blocks in a tray containing a mix of blue and green blocks and balls. The parrot not only needs to hold on to the concept of “blue” and “block” while distinguishing the targeted objects, but also needs to apply the concept of number, and the name of the number to them (Pepperberg, 1994). The fifth level awareness engages with the perception of hidden objects, which suggests the ability to predict events and construct a theory in mind. The tested subject must demonstrate the ability to memorize the identity of the hidden object, where it could be located, and how it could be retrieved. The subject may even show “surprised” when the result didn’t match its expectations, which is what happened when the researcher took away the previously hidden object for Alex the parrot to find (Pepperberg, 1992).

Among these examples, it is clear that animals do occupy consciousness of different levels. However, why do they develop certain levels of consciousness? According to the theory of natural selection, the idea of survival of the fittest suggests that individuals with the ability to resolve possible intellectual challenges specific to its niche could have advantage over others, thus having a greater chance to survive (Gould, 2004). One could say that the niche of a species has shaped its level of consciousness. For example, while crabs are simply scavengers feeding on organic residues on the seafloor, they do not need to develop as much mental skills as dolphins, which are highly sociable animals that live in groups and are constantly interacting with each other. Also, the ability of an African gray parrot to learn human language and classify objects could come from its natural habitual behavior of memorizing and distinguishing the songs of other birds in the wild (Pepperberg et al, 2000). Similar levels of consciousness and cognitive abilities have been discovered across distantly related species. Isomorphism resulting from convergent evolution would be the best explanation for this phenomenon, and also strongly supports the idea of how different niche shapes animals’ minds differently (Gould 2004).

References

Cotterill, R.M.J. (2001). Evolution, Cognition and Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies. 8(2), 3–17.

Gould, J.L. (2004). Animal Cognition. Current Biology. 14(10), 372–75.

Griffin, D.R. (1998). From cognition to consciousness. Animal Cognition. 1(1), 3-16.

Olton, D.S. and Samuelson, R.J. (1976). Remembrance of Places Passed: Spatial Memory in Rats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes. 2(2), 97–116.

Pepperberg,I.M. (1992). Proficient performance of a conjunctive, recursive task by an African gray parrot (Psittacus erithacus). Journal of comparative psychology. 106 (3), 295–305.

Pepperberg,I.M. (1994). Numerical competence in an African gray parrot (Psittacus erithacus). Journal of comparative psychology. 108 (1), 36–44.

Pepperberg,I.M., Lynn, S.K. (2000). Possible Levels of Animal Consciousness with Reference to Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus). American Zoologist. 40(6), 893–901.

Savage-Rumbaugh E. Sue, Rumbaugh, D. M., Smith, S. T. and Lawson, J. (1980). Reference: The Linguistic Essential. Science, New Series, 210(4427), 922-25.

Seth, A.K., Barrs, B.J., Edelman, D.B. (2005). Criteria for consciousness in humans and other mammals. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 119–39.

Suggestions
For the page: Primate Cognition

I think more information can be added to this page. The language section can be expanded further by adding more complete details about Nim Chimpsky's study, and also, including other cases like Koko or Kanzi can provide an opposite insight on the topic of grate ape language. The tool use section can also be expanded by adding more examples and mentioning tool manufacture. Finally, I think there can be a section comparing primate cognition to other animal's cognition, like birds or invertebrates.

Added sentence & citation

However, the idea of if tool use can actually represent a higher level of cognition or not has been controversial. There are interpretations of studies that suggest primates could use tools due to environmental or motivational cues.

Annotated Bibliography
Topic: '''Animal emotions: does it truly exists, or simply anthropomorphism? '''

Dixon, B. (2001). ANIMAL EMOTIONS. Ethics & The Environment, 6(2), 22.

How can the sharing of emotions between animals and humans be recognize has been a long debated problem, and it is a difficult question to answer. This article argued that emotions in humans are either evaluative or social-constructive, and the emotions of animals remain an open question whether or not they have similar state of mind as humans. This can be used in backing up the theory of anthropomorphism.

Povinelli, D., & Vonk, J. (2003). Chimpanzee minds: Suspiciously human? Trends in Cognitive Science, 7(4), 157–160.

Do chimpanzees really process a “theory of mind”, or is this just the way we humans understand social world? This article discussed the ability for chimpanzees to form mental state, the similarities between human minds and chimpanzee minds, and the possibility of human reinterpretation for the chimpanzee’s observed actions. This can provide evidences on animal cognitions and explanations for possible anthropomorphism.

Church, R. (1997). Quantitative models of animal learning and cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 23(4), 379-389.

This article reviewed the quantitative models of animal learning and cognition, which includes perquisites, types of models, development of these models, and the criteria of the evaluations. This can provide insight on how an animal’s cognition is evaluated in a scientific way.

Salzen, E. (1998). Emotion and self-awareness. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 57(3-4), 299–313.

This article discussed the source of self-awareness in animals, and how emotions are linked to the feedback from social interactions. It also mentioned how vocal signals are associated with the two criteria mentioned in the title, which is, how vocal signals are linked with certain emotions, and how does it help shape a species’ self-awareness. This can be used to explain the development of emotion and self-awareness for humans and animals.

Emery, N., & Clayton, N. (2009). Tool use and physical cognition in birds and mammals. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 19(1), 27–33.

Does tool use actually represent an animal’s physical intelligence? This article argued that tool use and manufacture in animals may demonstrate the ability of planning to some extent, yet it doesn’t fully support the hypothesis of a tool-using species is smarter than a non tool-using species. This can provide some insight in animal intelligence.