Trace conditioning as a test for animal consciousness: a new approach

Droege, Paula; Weiss, Daniel J.; Schwob, Natalie; Braithwaite, Valerie

doi:10.1007/s10071-021-01522-3

Cited by 41 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…e.g., ( 194 ), citing ( 195 )]: this too occurs in S.P.U.D subjects. Braithwaite and colleagues were therefore right to conclude, in one of Victoria's last papers, “trace conditioning is widespread and by itself does not indicate consciousness” ( 15 ), a conclusion echoed in this Special Topic collection by Droege et al ( 143 ). And the same also holds for instrumental learning, where pre-existing innate responses change in timing or form to become more effective (e.g., at avoiding punishment).…”

Section: Discussion and Conclusion: Applying Our Approach To The Fish...mentioning

confidence: 96%

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What Is It Like to Be a Bass? Red Herrings, Fish Pain and the Study of Animal Sentience

Mason

Lavery

2022

Front. Vet. Sci.

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Debates around fishes' ability to feel pain concern sentience: do reactions to tissue damage indicate evaluative consciousness (conscious affect), or mere nociception? Thanks to Braithwaite's discovery of trout nociceptors, and concerns that current practices could compromise welfare in countless fish, this issue's importance is beyond dispute. However, nociceptors are merely necessary, not sufficient, for true pain, and many measures held to indicate sentience have the same problem. The question of whether fish feel pain – or indeed anything at all – therefore stimulates sometimes polarized debate. Here, we try to bridge the divide. After reviewing key consciousness concepts, we identify “red herring” measures that should not be used to infer sentience because also present in non-sentient organisms, notably those lacking nervous systems, like plants and protozoa (P); spines disconnected from brains (S); decerebrate mammals and birds (D); and humans in unaware states (U). These “S.P.U.D. subjects” can show approach/withdrawal; react with apparent emotion; change their reactivity with food deprivation or analgesia; discriminate between stimuli; display Pavlovian learning, including some forms of trace conditioning; and even learn simple instrumental responses. Consequently, none of these responses are good indicators of sentience. Potentially more valid are aspects of working memory, operant conditioning, the self-report of state, and forms of higher order cognition. We suggest new experiments on humans to test these hypotheses, as well as modifications to tests for “mental time travel” and self-awareness (e.g., mirror self-recognition) that could allow these to now probe sentience (since currently they reflect perceptual rather than evaluative, affective aspects of consciousness). Because “bullet-proof” neurological and behavioral indicators of sentience are thus still lacking, agnosticism about fish sentience remains widespread. To end, we address how to balance such doubts with welfare protection, discussing concerns raised by key skeptics in this debate. Overall, we celebrate the rigorous evidential standards required by those unconvinced that fish are sentient; laud the compassion and ethical rigor shown by those advocating for welfare protections; and seek to show how precautionary principles still support protecting fish from physical harm.

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Section: Discussion and Conclusion: Applying Our Approach To The Fish...mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…And this reflects a much broader, harder problem: that the functions of consciousness are still not understood. Trying to identify what would make for stronger evidence of sentience was therefore one of Victoria's last pieces of scholarly work ( 15 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is It Like to Be a Bass? Red Herrings, Fish Pain and the Study of Animal Sentience

Mason

Lavery

2022

Front. Vet. Sci.

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“…The interesting result in the Clark and Squire experiments, on our analysis, is the failure to trace condition by participants who almost certainly would have successfully learned the association in the absence of distraction. Consequently, successful trace conditioning alone is insufficient as a test for consciousness [see (9) for further details]. Rather, we argue that having the flexibility to trace condition or not depending on attentional capacity might prove a better index, as we elaborate further in the final model under consideration.…”

Section: Model 2: Trace Conditioning Beyond Simple Associationmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Elsewhere ( 9 ) we hypothesize that only animals capable of task-directed attention will fail to trace condition under distraction when they are otherwise able to learn this sort of contingency. By filtering task-relevant stimuli, attention serves a critical role in maintaining focus.…”

Section: Model 2: Trace Conditioning Beyond Simple Associationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also review an example of a “low level” anthropomorphic model involving trace conditioning, which is a trained response to the first of two paired stimuli separated by an interval ( 8 ). This account highlights the role of consciousness in maintaining a stimulus representation over a temporal span, though it overlooks the importance of attention in subserving and also disrupting trace conditioning in humans ( 9 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fishnition: Developing Models From Cognition Toward Consciousness

2021

Self Cite

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A challenge to developing a model for testing animal consciousness is the pull of opposite intuitions. On one extreme, the anthropocentric view holds that consciousness is a highly sophisticated capacity involving self-reflection and conceptual categorization that is almost certainly exclusive to humans. At the opposite extreme, an anthropomorphic view attributes consciousness broadly to any behavior that involves sensory responsiveness. Yet human experience and observation of diverse species suggest that the most plausible case is that consciousness functions between these poles. In exploring the middle ground, we discuss the pros and cons of “high level” approaches such as the dual systems approach. According to this model, System 1 can be thought of as unconscious; processing is fast, automatic, associative, heuristic, parallel, contextual, and likely to be conserved across species. Consciousness is associated with System 2 processing that is slow, effortful, rule-based, serial, abstract, and exclusively human. An advantage of this model is the clear contrast between heuristic and decision-based responses, but it fails to include contextual decision-making in novel conditions which falls in between these two categories. We also review a “low level” model involving trace conditioning, which is a trained response to the first of two paired stimuli separated by an interval. This model highlights the role of consciousness in maintaining a stimulus representation over a temporal span, though it overlooks the importance of attention in subserving and also disrupting trace conditioning in humans. Through a critical analysis of these two extremes, we will develop the case for flexible behavioral response to the stimulus environment as the best model for demonstrating animal consciousness. We discuss a methodology for gauging flexibility across a wide variety of species and offer a case study in spatial navigation to illustrate our proposal. Flexibility serves the evolutionary function of enabling the complex evaluation of changing conditions, where motivation is the basis for goal valuation, and attention selects task-relevant stimuli to aid decision-making processes. We situate this evolutionary function within the Temporal Representation Theory of consciousness, which proposes that consciousness represents the present moment in order to facilitate flexible action.

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A critical review of plant sentience: moving beyond traditional approaches

Hansen

2024

Biol Philos

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Are plants sentient? Several researchers argue that plants might be sentient. They do so on the grounds that plants exhibit cognitive behaviour similar to that of sentient organisms and that they possess a vascular system which is functionally equivalent to the animal nervous system. This paper will not attempt to settle the issue of plant sentience. Instead, the paper has two goals. First, it provides a diagnosis of the current state of the debate on plant sentience. It is argued that the current state of the debate on plant sentience cannot yield any progress because the behavioural and physiological similarities pointed to as a way of inferring consciousness are not, in themselves, indicative of consciousness. Second, the paper proposes we adopt the theory-light approach proposed by Birch (Noûs 56(1):133–153, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12351) whereby we start to test for clusters of cognitive abilities facilitated by consciousness in plants. Currently, there are no such tests and therefore no evidence for plant sentience. The paper proposes that the task for future research on plants be in line with the tests outlined in the theory-light approach.

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Trace conditioning as a test for animal consciousness: a new approach

Cited by 41 publications

References 38 publications

What Is It Like to Be a Bass? Red Herrings, Fish Pain and the Study of Animal Sentience

What Is It Like to Be a Bass? Red Herrings, Fish Pain and the Study of Animal Sentience

Fishnition: Developing Models From Cognition Toward Consciousness

A critical review of plant sentience: moving beyond traditional approaches

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