Moment When Animals Started to Seem More Like People

[n2doc]

BY JENNIFER OUELLETTE

Any self-respecting pet owner will confidently claim that their dog or cat (or rabbit, or gerbil) seems sentient, exhibiting a distinct temperament and emotional responses. I know my many beloved pets over the years could feel pain, and fear, as well as love and trust. But are our pets truly conscious creatures? Or are we merely projecting our own thoughts and feelings onto our animal companions?

It likely depends on what you mean by consciousness. On one end of the scale there is basic wakefulness and sentient awareness—which we share with all living creatures—and on the other, more sophisticated end there is self-awareness. But there are many other systems and terms advanced by various researchers to categorize and describe consciousness. Part of the confusion stems from the great complexity, largely still unknown, of how the brain gives rise to consciousness.

For a long time, scientists assumed that having a neocortex (the outer, and more recently evolved, part of mammals’ brains) was necessary to be truly conscious in the human sense—not merely aware of one’s surroundings (sentient) but also self-aware. But there’s good news for animal lovers, because that view is changing.

When we are just over one year old, we can look into a mirror and recognize the reflection as being “us,” and the brain maps that visual input, tracking the changes in our size and appearance over the years. In the 1970s, Gordon G. Gallup devised a mirror test, in which he marked the face of an animal as it slept. Once it woke and saw its reflection in a mirror, if the animal tried to wipe away the mark, Gallup took this as evidence of a certain degree of self-awareness. Animals that have passed the mirror test include chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins (video), and elephants, all of which possess a neocortex—and magpies, which do not. So it turns out that a neocortex might not be essential after all.

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http://nautil.us/blog/a-moment-when-animals-started-to-seem-more-like-people

[truedelphi]

1. I have had two different pets that played pranks on me.

So I am glad to hear that scientists are catching up to what pet owners experience.

One was a Doberman who came tiptoeing into a shed where I was using the washing machine. (Dobermans actually prefer to tiptoe when stalking quarry.) He waited till I was bent over, exposing the small of my back, and then he placed his very cold, very wet nose against that bit of skin.

As i shrieked and jumped almost to the ceiling, that dog got the most wonderful grin on his face.

Now I have a white Manx Cat, and that fellow will hide in the armoire. I will hear him meowing, and get up from bed thinking he is trapped inside the armoire. Then I open the doors to it. When he doesn't surface, I go back to bed, and then fifteen minutes later the same pitiful "I am trapped, Pls help me!" meow. Again, the door of armoire gets opened, but he doesn't come out,.

The first time this happened, the game went on for an hour. Finally I searched the armoire carefully, only to find said cat hiding under a small throw rug on the armoire's floor. He too was grinning from ear to ear.

[n2doc]

2. We had a Doberman who loved to 'goose' people

She would sneak up behind you when you were distracted, then strike.

We have also had pet rats who would play games with us, including 'follow the leader'. They would bug us until we would play with them. Animals like their games, too.

[postulater]

3. I remember when I realized there were other creatures in my world.

There was motion in my field of vision that did not coordinate with what I was doing.

I decided it wasn't random like other motions and colors.

When I paid attention to it it responded. I think I was a couple months old. Don't remember who it was though.

[darkangel218]

5. My first memory

It was my mom coming to check on me. Obviously I didn't know who she was, but I remember thinking she was different people, because she was always wearing different clothes.

:/

[postulater]

6. Haha! The Multi-Mom!

She should have known better that to trick you like that.

[darkangel218]

7. Why? is that a researched stuff? has it happened to others?

Please tell me more

[postulater]

8. I don't know that it is anything other than an interesting

experience that you had.

It's amazing how you, even at an early age, remembered from one episode to next that clothes were different.

I wonder how you then realized that there was only one person wearing different clothes.

[darkangel218]

9. As i got a bit older i figured out that the person who was looking after me

Was one and the same.

[tridim]

4. The video is amazing. So cute!