Researchers propose a new way to study animal consciousness

He the animal world is one of the most diverse objects of study in science, wild and domestic species are capable of having self-perception of what they are thinking or doing, the unknown around consciousness caused Professor Albert Newen and postdoctoral student Leonard Dung from University of Bochum Ruhr “reflection” research has different specimens before different stimuli they receive.

In their article “Animal Consciousness Profiles: A Species-Sensitive Two-Tier Account for Quality and Distribution”, published by the scientific journal Cognition from the Dutch publisher Elsevier, scholars from the German university are studying which species are sentient and what experiences they go through during these processes.

Scholars have defined consciousness as being characterized by ten different dimensions and discovered which behaviors indicate that a non-human animal is present in one of these “extensions”.

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Newen and Dung explained that there is a constant debate in the scientific community about which animals have consciousness, despite the fact that there is a theory that this perception is like a switch that can be turned on or off, they have established that there is a “more refined idea” that cannot be considered like a dimmer which has different degrees.

In an interview for the scientific magazine PhysicalAlbert Newen commented that “it is not necessarily worth wondering whether a mouse has more consciousness than an octopus. You may get a different answer, depending on what aspect of consciousness you are examining.”

For this reason, they suggest measuring the spectrum between strong and weak indicators, so that the subjective experience of each of the species in relation to humans can finally be measured.

Among the ten dimensions or aspects suggested by Bochum scholars are emotional inner life, self-awareness or conscious perception. These They don’t have to be on top of each other. as if it were a classification, otherwise they would be segmented as in categories.

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According to the authors, sensory stimuli are not an indicator of consciousness since there are different studies that have shown that people with brain damage show that two pathways in the brain must interact for conscious perception. “As a result, mere reception and reaction to sensory stimuli, which we find in all living organisms, is not a notable indicator,” Leonard Dung detailed.

Animals such as monkeys, parrots and dogs can identify or categorize objects as individual things, these species are capable of developing complex perceptions. Academics gave the example of border collies, which can identify up to 1,000 objects.

According to the science magazine, PhysicalThere are currently similar experiments in animals that have proven that they consciously perceive signals.

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Dung and Newen argued that consciousness is closely related to complex memory, memories of past events are also a strong indicator of this perception, it is even well documented in rats and some species of birds.

The researchers explained that this proposal to categorize consciousness into 10 different levels, covers three essential aspects for the study. In addition to being the best option available so far, being able to compare the perception of different species that have a very different organization.