Misplaced Pages

#571428

87-644: APPA supports the interests of its members through public policy, public affairs, and animal awareness . In 2008, it dropped the word Manufacturers from its name. The APPA organizes the Global Pet Expo annually in Orlando, Florida . It is a B2B trade show for the pet industry in which over 6,000 buyers from various businesses establish relationships with brands and place wholesale orders. This includes large chains such as Petsmart and Petco as well as small, independently owned pet stores. The 2024 expo featured

174-416: A self-concept has been hotly debated; it is often referred to as the debate over animal minds. The best known research technique in this area is the mirror test devised by Gordon G. Gallup , in which the skin of an animals (or human infant) is marked, while they are asleep or sedated, with a mark that cannot be seen directly but is visible in a mirror. The animals are then allowed to see their reflection in

261-526: A Bat? He said that an organism is conscious "if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism"; and he argued that no matter how much we know about an animal's brain and behavior, we can never really put ourselves into the mind of the animal and experience their world in the way they do themselves. Other thinkers, such as the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter , dismiss this argument as incoherent. Several psychologists and ethologists have argued for

348-578: A Master's. The relocation was just what he needed, and the university provided him with fresh ideas and stimulation. At this time, he intended to try once again to major in mathematics. He felt discouraged by the instructor's unfavorable personality, however, and Carr felt compelled to study instead under another professor with whom he had made a connection. This professor taught Psychology and Education, and Carr identified similarities between these subjects and his own background and interests in teaching. Of psychology, Carr admittedly knew little. He decided to take

435-511: A basis of consciousness. Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. Attention has also been referred to as the allocation of processing resources. Attention also has variations amongst cultures. Voluntary attention develops in specific cultural and institutional contexts through engagement in cultural activities with more competent community members. Most experiments show that one neural correlate of attention

522-528: A bat has a point of view, but there seems to be little interest in exploring the details involved. Consciousness in mammals (including humans) is an aspect of the mind generally thought to comprise qualities such as subjectivity , sentience , and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment . It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind , psychology , neuroscience , and cognitive science . Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which

609-671: A community. The company hosts various classes, workshops, panels, Q&A session and more to support pet industry brand owners and others on the community. They also work to support media such as bloggers, social media managers and influencers as well as bring them all together. It is now put on simultaneously with Global Pet Expo. APPA has been conducting the National Pet Owners Survey (NPOS) since 1988, providing comprehensive consumer research on pet owners. The survey includes in-depth data on consumer behavior, product and service consumption, and lifestyle and media habits. The survey

696-401: A concurrent, human-like awareness of pain, suffering or distress, which depend on separately evolved neocortex." Recently that view has been challenged, and many researchers now believe that animal consciousness can arise from homologous subcortical brain networks. For instance, evidence suggests the pallium in bird brains to be functionally equivalent to the mammalian cerebral cortex as

783-456: A job teaching in a country school close by in order to afford to return to school. He was familiar to the people of this area, and respected for his college education. The admiration motivated him to take his teaching duties seriously in order to fulfill the community's expectations of him. Carr had no prior education in educating, and quickly learned that the task required serious skill and experimentation in technique. He cited McMurray's Method of

870-399: A legitimate external threat. The history of epiphenomenalism goes back to the post-Cartesian attempt to solve the riddle of Cartesian dualism , i.e., of how mind and body could interact. La Mettrie , Leibniz and Spinoza all in their own way began this way of thinking. The idea that even if the animal were conscious nothing would be added to the production of behavior, even in animals of

957-552: A level of consciousness that we would normally ascribe only to our own species. Philosopher Daniel Dennett counters: Consciousness requires a certain kind of informational organization that does not seem to be 'hard-wired' in humans, but is instilled by human culture. Moreover, consciousness is not a black-or-white, all-or-nothing type of phenomenon, as is often assumed. The differences between humans and other species are so great that speculations about animal consciousness seem ungrounded. Many authors simply assume that an animal like

SECTION 10

#1732884791572

1044-611: A lifelong interest. He considered both physics and biology while seeking a new major, though both subjects were poorly supported by the university and the latter was considered to be taboo by the "authorities." The nature of biological study and basis in evolutionary theory were frowned upon in the distinctly religious university. Carr felt repressed by DePauw's religious stance against evolution, and became distrustful of those who would oppose scientific study. Still, he made respectable grades in all of his various subjects and had little concern about his future vocation. At this time, he considered

1131-478: A minor in history, and relished the opportunity to develop scientific skill in this field. In his words, "Perhaps science must be defined in terms of its spirit and method and not on the basis of the subject matter." The University of Colorado provided a unique first experience in the field of psychology. His instructor, Arthur Allin , was fond of G. Stanley Hall 's style of mentorship, and provided Carr with an enthusiastic and paternal hand in development. While such

1218-413: A mirror; if the animal spontaneously directs grooming behaviour towards the mark, that is taken as an indication that they are aware of themselves. Over the past 30 years, many studies have found evidence that animals recognise themselves in mirrors. Self-awareness by this criterion has been reported for: Until recently, it was thought that self-recognition was absent in animals without a neocortex , and

1305-414: A new study conducted in rhesus monkeys , Ben-Haim and his team used a process dissociation approach that predicted opposite behavioral outcomes for the two modes of perception. They found that monkeys displayed exactly the same opposite behavioral outcomes as humans when they were aware or unaware of the stimuli presented. The sense in which animals (or human infants) can be said to have consciousness or

1392-443: A particular object or activity. Harvey A. Carr Harvey A. Carr (April 30, 1873 – June 21, 1954), a founding father of functionalist psychology , was renowned for a methodical and thorough approach to his science. His work was largely devoted to studies of animal cognition and perception. Carr collaborated with John B. Watson on his most well-known project: the famous Kerplunk experiment . Carr held his post as chairman of

1479-402: A plant is wounded, its body immediately kicks into protection mode. It releases a bouquet of volatile chemicals, which in some cases have been shown to induce neighboring plants to pre-emptively step up their own chemical defenses and in other cases to lure in predators of the beasts that may be causing the damage to the plants. Inside the plant, repair systems are engaged and defenses are mounted,

1566-447: A possible future in law, and decided that it would be best to work and save up prior to attending law school. However, in his third year of college, a serious illness and financial pressures forced him to take leave and Carr returned home to recover for the rest of the year. The following year he spent working the farm and building back up his physical strength. Around this time, farmers in the area suffered some hardships, and Carr took up

1653-429: A process, and the so-called "hard problem" of relating consciousness directly to brain activity remains elusive. Since Descartes 's proposal of dualism , it became general consensus that the mind had become a matter of philosophy and that science was not able to penetrate the issue of consciousness – that consciousness was outside of space and time. However, in recent decades many scholars have begun to move toward

1740-424: A rationale for the mistreatment of animals because he argued that only humans are conscious. Philosophers who consider subjective experience the essence of consciousness also generally believe, as a correlate, that the existence and nature of animal consciousness can never rigorously be known. The American philosopher Thomas Nagel spelled out this point of view in an influential essay titled What Is it Like to Be

1827-512: A recording breaking 1,100+ companies with 3,400 booths with over 20,000 attendees from over 85 countries. The 2024 Global Pet Expo also had a $ 45 million economic impact in the Metropolitan Orlando area in Florida. APPA acquired The Pet Summit in 2023. It was founded by Paige Chernick and Megan Marcari in 2020 for those in the pet industry to come together for education, to network and build

SECTION 20

#1732884791572

1914-566: A science of consciousness. Antonio Damasio and Gerald Edelman are two neuroscientists who have led the move to neural correlates of the self and of consciousness. Damasio has demonstrated that emotions and their biological foundation play a critical role in high level cognition, and Edelman has created a framework for analyzing consciousness through a scientific outlook. The current problem consciousness researchers face involves explaining how and why consciousness arises from neural computation. In his research on this problem, Edelman has developed

2001-523: A style was criticized elsewhere, Carr respected both Allin's and Hall's influences. Though the university had no psychology lab, Allin encouraged Carr to become invested in experimental psychology. Allin himself cared little for apparatus and machinery, but saw the expanding interest in experimental work and predicted growth in that area of the discipline. Unfortunately, the lack of equipment meant that apparatus were improvised altogether and never produced success in their research. The following year, 1902, Carr

2088-470: A theory of consciousness, in which he has coined the terms primary consciousness and secondary consciousness . Eugene Linden , author of The Parrot's Lament suggests there are many examples of animal behavior and intelligence that surpass what people would suppose to be the boundary of animal consciousness. Linden contends that in many of these documented examples, a variety of animal species exhibit behavior that can only be attributed to emotion, and to

2175-479: Is transmarginal inhibition , a phenomenon observed in humans and some animals akin to mental breakdown . Carl Sagan , the American cosmologist, points to reasons why humans have had a tendency to deny animals can suffer: Humans – who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals – have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals'

2262-421: Is a causally inert effect of neural activity—"as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery". To this William James objects in his essay Are We Automata? by stating an evolutionary argument for mind-brain interaction implying that if the preservation and development of consciousness in the biological evolution is a result of natural selection , it

2349-644: Is a pattern of deviation in judgment, whereby inferences about other animals and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. Individuals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input. It refers to the question " Is the glass half empty or half full? ", used as an indicator of optimism or pessimism. Cognitive biases have been shown in a wide range of species including rats, dogs, rhesus macaques, sheep, chicks, starlings and honeybees. The neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux advocates avoiding terms derived from human subjective experience when discussing brain functions in animals. For example,

2436-474: Is enhanced firing. If a neuron has a certain response to a stimulus when the animal is not attending to the stimulus, then when the animal does attend to the stimulus, the neuron's response will be enhanced even if the physical characteristics of the stimulus remain the same. In many cases attention produces changes in the EEG . Many animals, including humans, produce gamma waves (40–60 Hz) when focusing attention on

2523-505: Is entirely focused on vision, the primary sense in humans, while other species rely more heavily on other senses such as the olfactory sense in dogs. A study in 2015 showed that the " sniff test of self-recognition (STSR) " provides evidence of self-awareness in dogs. Another approach to determine whether a non-human animal is conscious derives from passive speech research with a macaw (see Arielle ). Some researchers propose that by passively listening to an animal's voluntary speech, it

2610-465: Is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them – without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us. John Webster, a professor of animal husbandry at Bristol, argues: People have assumed that intelligence

2697-422: Is linked to the ability to suffer and that because animals have smaller brains they suffer less than humans. That is a pathetic piece of logic, sentient animals have the capacity to experience pleasure and are motivated to seek it, you only have to watch how cows and lambs both seek and enjoy pleasure when they lie with their heads raised to the sun on a perfect English summer's day. Just like humans. However, there

American Pet Products Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

2784-402: Is marked by precision and objectivity, it is perhaps unsurprising that he was taken with mathematics in his early college days. Carr himself admits that this passion likely influenced his approach. He continued in this pursuit until he began to study differential equations; the difficulty of the subject made him doubt his mathematical prowess. Carr took up the study of history, which developed into

2871-453: Is no agreement where the line should be drawn between organisms that can feel pain and those that cannot. Justin Leiber , a philosophy professor at Oxford University writes that: Montaigne is ecumenical in this respect, claiming consciousness for spiders and ants, and even writing of our duties to trees and plants. Singer and Clarke agree in denying consciousness to sponges. Singer locates

2958-450: Is plausible that consciousness has not only been influenced by neural processes, but has had a survival value itself; and it could only have had this if it had been efficacious. Karl Popper develops in the book The Self and Its Brain a similar evolutionary argument. Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University, the principal author of two U.S. federal laws regulating pain relief for animals, writes that researchers remained unsure into

3045-539: Is possible to learn about the thoughts of another creature and to determine that the speaker is conscious. This type of research was originally used to investigate a child's crib speech by Weir (1962) and in investigations of early speech in children by Greenfield and others (1976). Zipf's law might be able to be used to indicate if a given dataset of animal communication indicate an intelligent natural language. Some researchers have used this algorithm to study bottlenose dolphin language. Further arguments revolve around

3132-656: Is subjective experience itself, and access consciousness, which refers to the global availability of information to processing systems in the brain. Phenomenal consciousness has many different experienced qualities, often referred to as qualia . Phenomenal consciousness is usually consciousness of something or about something, a property known as intentionality in philosophy of mind. In humans, there are three common methods of studying consciousness: verbal reporting, behavioural demonstrations, and neural correlation with conscious activity, though these can only be generalized to non-human taxa with varying degrees of difficulty. In

3219-703: Is to use experiment (especially psychophysics) and observation to trace the dawning and ontogeny of self-consciousness, perception, communication, intention, beliefs, and reflection in normal human fetuses, infants, and children". In 2012, a group of neuroscientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness , which "unequivocally" asserted that "humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neural substrates." The mind–body problem in philosophy examines

3306-655: The Kerplunk experiment . While the study gained fame, Carr was saddened when Watson's recognition called him away from Chicago and earned him a place at Johns Hopkins. Carr took charge of animal studies at Chicago in 1908, and continued the line of work they'd been developing. He published on a wide range of subjects, though his work was always characterized by a careful, skeptical and controlled approach. His publications also matured as he did, moving from specific topics in experimental psychology to more broad constructs. Carr focused increasingly on concepts like learning, consciousness, and

3393-443: The allocortex . In humans, 90% of the cerebral cortex is neocortex. Researchers have argued that consciousness in mammals arises in the neocortex, and therefore by extension used to argue that consciousness cannot arise in animals which lack a neocortex. For example, Rose argued in 2002 that the "fishes have nervous systems that mediate effective escape and avoidance responses to noxious stimuli, but, these responses must occur without

3480-473: The cognitive revolution . Participants in that revolution, such as Jerry Fodor , reject epiphenomenalism and insist upon the efficacy of the mind. Fodor even speaks of "epiphobia"—fear that one is becoming an epiphenomenalist. Thomas Henry Huxley defends in an essay titled On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History an epiphenomenalist theory of consciousness according to which consciousness

3567-477: The 1980s as to whether animals experience pain, and veterinarians trained in the U.S. before 1989 were simply taught to ignore animal pain. In his interactions with scientists and other veterinarians, Rollin asserts that he was regularly asked to prove animals are conscious and provide scientifically acceptable grounds for claiming they feel pain. The denial of animal consciousness by scientists has been described as mentophobia by Donald Griffin. Academic reviews of

American Pet Products Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

3654-688: The Psychology department at the University of Chicago from 1926 to 1938. He also served as the president of the American Psychological Association in 1926. Harvey A. Carr was born in Morris, Illinois , on April 30, 1873, to Hamilton Carr and Bell Garden. He decided that psychology was not the route for him and chose to become a science teacher at the University of Harvard instead. Notably, he

3741-528: The Recitation as one of his main resources in learning this craft, which heavily impacted his later mentorship of his own graduate students. He found he enjoyed this work and taught with charisma and care in order to get the best from his students. When Carr was ready to return to his own scholarship, he decided to opt for a change of scenery and chose to attend the University of Colorado in 1899. With his bachelor's degree completed, he decided to stay and pursued

3828-454: The University of Chicago's psychology program grew tremendously under Carr's influence. He went from his position as assistant professor all the way to chairman of the department, where he held his position from 1926 to 1938. During these years, he supervised graduate students with theses in various areas of psychology. He stated that 131 degrees were touched by his influence, 53 of those being doctoral dissertations under his direct supervision. He

3915-409: The ability of animals to feel pain or suffering . Suffering implies consciousness. If animals can be shown to suffer in a way similar or identical to humans, many of the arguments against human suffering could then, presumably, be extended to animals. Others have argued that pain can be demonstrated by adverse reactions to negative stimuli that are non-purposeful or even maladaptive. One such reaction

4002-442: The ability to experience or to feel , wakefulness , having a sense of selfhood , and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. The topic of animal consciousness is beset with a number of difficulties. It poses the problem of other minds in an especially severe form because animals, lacking

4089-547: The ability to experience or to feel , wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood , and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness : "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once

4176-403: The ability to use human language , cannot communicate their experiences. It is also difficult to reason objectively about the question because a denial that an animal is conscious is often taken to imply that they do not feel, their life has no value, and that harming them is not morally wrong. For example, the 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes is sometimes criticised for providing

4263-455: The attempt to uncover laws describing the relationship between stimuli and responses, without reference to inner mental phenomena. Instead of adopting a form of eliminativism or mental fictionalism , positions that deny that inner mental phenomena exist, a behaviorist was able to adopt epiphenomenalism in order to allow for the existence of mind. However, by the 1960s, scientific behaviourism met substantial difficulties and eventually gave way to

4350-428: The brain or that both are effects of a common cause, as opposed to mental phenomena driving the physical mechanics of the brain. The impression that thoughts, feelings, or sensations cause physical effects, is therefore to be understood as illusory to some extent. For example, it is not the feeling of fear that produces an increase in heart beat, both are symptomatic of a common physiological origin, possibly in response to

4437-583: The capacity to simulate seems to have culminated in subjective consciousness. Why this should have happened is, to me, the most profound mystery facing modern biology." In 2004, eight neuroscientists felt it was still too soon for a definition. They wrote an apology in "Human Brain Function", in which they stated: Consciousness is sometimes defined as the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined somewhat vaguely as: subjectivity , awareness , sentience ,

SECTION 50

#1732884791572

4524-431: The common practice of calling brain circuits that detect and respond to threats "fear circuits" implies that these circuits are responsible for feelings of fear. LeDoux argues that Pavlovian fear conditioning should be renamed Pavlovian threat conditioning to avoid the implication that "fear" is being acquired in rats or humans. Key to his theoretical change is the notion of survival functions mediated by survival circuits,

4611-532: The conscious system may actually interfere somewhat with these automated programs. The growing ability of neuroscientists to manipulate neurons using methods from molecular biology in combination with optical tools depends on the simultaneous development of appropriate behavioural assays and model organisms amenable to large-scale genomic analysis and manipulation. A combination of such fine-grained neuronal analysis in animals with ever more sensitive psychophysical and brain imaging techniques in humans, complemented by

4698-509: The development of a robust theoretical predictive framework, will hopefully lead to a rational understanding of consciousness. The neocortex is a part of the brain of mammals. It consists of the grey matter , or neuronal cell bodies and unmyelinated fibers, surrounding the deeper white matter ( myelinated axons ) in the cerebrum . The neocortex is smooth in rodents and other small mammals, whereas in primates and other larger mammals it has deep grooves and wrinkles. These folds increase

4785-431: The distinction somewhere between the shrimp and the oyster. He, with rather considerable convenience for one who is thundering hard accusations at others, slides by the case of insects and spiders and bacteria, they pace Montaigne, apparently and rather conveniently do not feel pain. The intrepid Midgley , on the other hand, seems willing to speculate about the subjective experience of tapeworms ... Nagel ... appears to draw

4872-696: The existence of animal consciousness by describing a range of behaviors that appear to show animals holding beliefs about things they cannot directly perceive—Walter Veit's 2023 book A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness reviews a substantial portion of the evidence. Animal consciousness has been actively researched for over one hundred years. In 1927, the American functional psychologist Harvey Carr argued that any valid measure or understanding of awareness in animals depends on "an accurate and complete knowledge of its essential conditions in man". A more recent review concluded in 1985 that "the best approach

4959-437: The extent that their execution happens beyond the realms of our awareness. Take, as an example, the incredible fine motor skills exerted in playing a Beethoven piano sonata or the sensorimotor coordination required to ride a motorcycle along a curvy mountain road. Such complex behaviors are possible only because a sufficient number of the subprograms involved can be executed with minimal or even suspended conscious control. In fact,

5046-458: The human type, was first voiced by La Mettrie (1745), and then by Cabanis (1802), and was further explicated by Hodgson (1870) and Huxley (1874). Huxley (1874) likened mental phenomena to the whistle on a steam locomotive. However, epiphenomenalism flourished primarily as it found a niche among methodological or scientific behaviorism. In the early 1900s scientific behaviorists such as Ivan Pavlov , John B. Watson , and B. F. Skinner began

5133-572: The lab and began his work in space perception. Perception, spatial reasoning, maze navigation, and animal cognition remained Carr's primary interests for years to come. In 1905, Carr defended his dissertation: A visual illusion of motion during eye closure." Following his doctoral defense, Carr spent a few years teaching at several schools, strengthening his skill. He taught psychology for two years at Pratt Institute , where he met his wife, Antoinette Cox. The two later had three children together. Carr returned to Chicago in 1907 and worked with Watson on

5220-452: The line at flounders and wasps, though more recently he speaks of the inner life of cockroaches. There are also some who reject the argument entirely, arguing that although suffering animals feel anguish, a suffering plant also struggles to stay alive (albeit in a less visible way). In fact, no living organism 'wants' to die for another organism's sustenance. In an article written for The New York Times , Carol Kaesuk Yoon argues that: When

5307-560: The mind. He was known to question ideas which were being taken for granted by others. He cautiously examined curves of forgetting, limens, plateaus, range of attention, and memory. Carr's interest in Functionalism deepened, influenced by GF Stout , GH Mead , and the colleagues with whom he had worked closely. In Carr's version of Functionalism, which he called the "American psychology," adaptation and learning effects are emphasized. He found psychology to be defined by mental activity. While he

SECTION 60

#1732884791572

5394-410: The minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept . Neuroscientists use empirical approaches to discover neural correlates of subjective phenomena. The set should be minimal because, if the brain is sufficient to give rise to any given conscious experience, the question is which of its components is necessary to produce it. Visual sense and representation

5481-413: The mirror and mark tests showed that neocortex-less magpies are capable of understanding that a mirror image belongs to their own body. The findings show that magpies respond in the mirror and mark tests in a manner similar to apes, dolphins and elephants. The magpies were chosen to study based on their empathy and lifestyle, a possible precursor to their ability to develop self-awareness. For chimpanzees,

5568-570: The molecular details of which scientists are still working out, but which involve signaling molecules coursing through the body to rally the cellular troops, even the enlisting of the genome itself, which begins churning out defense-related proteins ... If you think about it, though, why would we expect any organism to lie down and die for our dinner? Organisms have evolved to do everything in their power to avoid being extinguished. How long would any lineage be likely to last if its members effectively didn't care if you killed them? Cognitive bias in animals

5655-648: The most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives." Related terms, also often used in vague or ambiguous ways, are: Sentience (the ability to feel, perceive, or to experience subjectivity) is not the same as self-awareness (being aware of oneself as an individual). The mirror test is sometimes considered to be an operational test for self-awareness, and the handful of animals that have passed it are often considered to be self-aware. It remains debatable whether recognition of one's mirror image can be properly construed to imply full self-awareness, particularly given that robots are being constructed which appear to pass

5742-622: The nervous system. Theoretical studies of neural networks are being complemented with techniques for imaging sensory and motor tasks in the brain . According to a 2008 paper, neuroscience explanations of psychological phenomena currently have a "seductive allure", and "seem to generate more public interest" than explanations which do not contain neuroscientific information. They found that subjects who were not neuroscience experts "judged that explanations with logically irrelevant neuroscience information were more satisfying than explanations without. The neural correlates of consciousness constitute

5829-490: The non-physical mind and its physical extension has proven problematic to dualism and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body. These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, particularly in the fields of sociobiology , computer science , evolutionary psychology , and the neurosciences . Epiphenomenalism is the theory in philosophy of mind that mental phenomena are caused by physical processes in

5916-412: The occipital lobe contains the primary visual cortex , and the temporal lobe contains the primary auditory cortex . Further subdivisions or areas of neocortex are responsible for more specific cognitive processes. The neocortex is the newest part of the cerebral cortex to evolve (hence the prefix "neo"); the other parts of the cerebral cortex are the paleocortex and archicortex , collectively known as

6003-412: The occurrence is about 75% in young adults and considerably less in young and old individuals. For monkeys, non-primate mammals, and a number of bird species, exploration of the mirror and social displays were observed. Hints at mirror-induced self-directed behavior have been obtained. According to a 2019 study, cleaner wrasses have become the first fish ever observed to pass the mirror test. However,

6090-497: The only differences between an emotional and non-emotion state of consciousness are the underlying neural ingredients that contribute to the state. Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system . It is a highly active interdisciplinary science that collaborates with many other fields. The scope of neuroscience has broadened recently to include molecular , cellular , developmental , structural , functional , evolutionary , computational , and medical aspects of

6177-466: The purpose of which is to keep organisms alive rather than to make emotions. For example, defensive survival circuits exist to detect and respond to threats. While all organisms can do this, only organisms that can be conscious of their own brain's activities can feel fear. Fear is a conscious experience and occurs the same way as any other kind of conscious experience: via cortical circuits that allow attention to certain forms of brain activity. LeDoux argues

6264-451: The relationship between mind and matter , and in particular the relationship between consciousness and the brain. A variety of approaches have been proposed. Most are either dualist or monist . Dualism maintains a rigid distinction between the realms of mind and matter. Monism maintains that there is only one kind of stuff, and that mind and matter are both aspects of it. The problem was addressed by pre- Aristotelian philosophers, and

6351-408: The serious pursuits of life." With a thirst for knowledge even in these early years, Carr supplemented the teachings provided in his high school and taught himself physics, algebra, and chemistry from textbooks. Though college education was not typical or expected in the community, Carr was driven to learn more. At the age of 18, Carr became a student of DePauw University 's preparatory department. He

6438-423: The surface area of the neocortex considerably without taking up too much more volume. Also, neurons within the same wrinkle have more opportunity for connectivity, while neurons in different wrinkles have less opportunity for connectivity, leading to compartmentalization of the cortex. The neocortex is divided into frontal , parietal , occipital , and temporal lobes, which perform different functions. For example,

6525-581: The term consciousness can be identified and categorized based on functions and experiences . The prospects for reaching any single, agreed-upon, theory-independent definition of consciousness appear remote. Consciousness is an elusive concept that presents many difficulties when attempts are made to define it. Its study has progressively become an interdisciplinary challenge for numerous researchers, including ethologists, neurologists, cognitive neuroscientists, philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists. In 1976, Richard Dawkins wrote, "The evolution of

6612-496: The test's inventor Gordon Gallup has said that the fish were most likely trying to scrape off a perceived parasite on another fish and that they did not demonstrate self-recognition. The authors of the study retorted that because the fish checked themselves in the mirror before and after the scraping, this meant that the fish had self-awareness and recognized that their reflections belonged to their own bodies. The mirror test has attracted controversy among some researchers because it

6699-463: The test. Much has been learned in neuroscience about correlations between brain activity and subjective, conscious experiences, and many suggest that neuroscience will ultimately explain consciousness; "...consciousness is a biological process that will eventually be explained in terms of molecular signaling pathways used by interacting populations of nerve cells...". However, this view has been criticized because consciousness has yet to be shown to be

6786-567: The topic are equivocal, noting that the argument that animals have at least simple conscious thoughts and feelings has strong support, but some critics continue to question how reliably animal mental states can be determined. A refereed journal Animal Sentience launched in 2015 by the Institute of Science and Policy of The Humane Society of the United States is devoted to research on this and related topics. About forty meanings attributed to

6873-472: Was able to complete a three-year course in two years by taking extra classes and performing extra work in a district school. Carr entered college after completing prep school, and chose to remain at DePauw. Though he had not yet developed specific vocational goals, he felt that the opportunity to learn and sample several subjects was a valuable privilege. Carr opted to major in mathematics, which he found stimulating and absorbing. As his later research in psychology

6960-521: Was famously addressed by René Descartes in the 17th century, resulting in Cartesian dualism . Descartes believed that humans only, and not other animals have this non-physical mind. The rejection of the mind–body dichotomy is found in French Structuralism , and is a position that generally characterized post-war French philosophy . The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between

7047-434: Was given a fellowship as a grad student at the University of Chicago to study experimental psychology. Carr began to work closely with Dewey, Angell, and Watson, and he shared a great friendship with the latter two. When he first saw the lab, he was shocked by the tiny building, which was heavily worn and falling apart; Carr considered it to be "unfit for human habitation." Regardless, Carr took up collaboration with Watson in

7134-546: Was involved in many psychological committees, and held positions as editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology and the Journal of General Psychology. His writings, of which there are over 50, are influential and varied. He authored two books entitled Psychology, a Study of Mental Activity (1925) and An Introduction to Visual Space Perception (1935). He became president of the APA in 1927, giving an address entitled, Interpretation of

7221-441: Was known to be open to new ideas, he was hesitant to accept Watson's Behaviorism , especially as it opposed his ideas of Mentalism . He found himself to be "somewhat of a behaviorist in the field of animal psychology" but did not accept the approach in human psychology. In his autobiography, Carr admitted that he wished he could see the future psychology of 1990, though he feared it would be woefully disappointing. Functionalism and

7308-474: Was not given the middle initial "A" at birth but instead chose it for himself later in life to round out his signature. Carr was a tall, slim man with a quick wit and a reserved, humble presence. His parents were free-thinkers who encouraged their son to make his own decisions about religion, education, and career. Carr states in his autobiography that the local community "firmly believed in the value of book learning—in so far as its acquisition did not interfere with

7395-574: Was previously issued biannually but switched to annually in 2022. It's offered for free to APPA members or can be purchased. This article about a business, industry, or trade-related organization is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Animal consciousness Animal consciousness , or animal awareness , is the quality or state of self-awareness within an animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience , awareness , subjectivity , qualia ,

7482-399: Was restricted to mammals with large brains and well-developed social cognition. However, in 2008, a study of self-recognition in corvids reported significant results for magpies. Mammals and birds inherited the same brain components from their last common ancestor nearly 300 million years ago, and have since independently evolved and formed significantly different brain types. The results of

7569-676: Was reviewed in 1998 by Francis Crick and Christof Koch . They concluded sensory neuroscience can be used as a bottom-up approach to studying consciousness, and suggested experiments to test various hypotheses in this research stream. A feature that distinguishes humans from most animals is that we are not born with an extensive repertoire of behavioral programs that would enable us to survive on our own (" physiological prematurity "). To compensate for this, we have an unmatched ability to learn, i.e., to consciously acquire such programs by imitation or exploration. Once consciously acquired and sufficiently exercised, these programs can become automated to

#571428