Cognitive Ethology Research Articles

What is it like to be a bot? The world according to GPT-4.

The recent explosion of Large Language Models (LLMs) has provoked lively debate about "emergent" properties of the models, including intelligence, insight, creativity, and meaning. These debates are rocky for two main reasons: The emergent properties sought are not well-defined; and the grounds for their dismissal often rest on a fallacious appeal to extraneous factors, like the LLM training regime, or fallacious assumptions about processes within the model. The latter issue is a particular roadblock for LLMs because their internal processes are largely unknown - they are colossal black boxes. In this paper, I try to cut through these problems by, first, identifying one salient feature shared by systems we regard as intelligent/conscious/sentient/etc., namely, their responsiveness to environmental conditions that may not be near in space and time. They engage with subjective worlds ("s-worlds") which may or may not conform to the actual environment. Observers can infer s-worlds from behavior alone, enabling hypotheses about perception and cognition that do not require evidence from the internal operations of the systems in question. The reconstruction of s-worlds offers a framework for comparing cognition across species, affording new leverage on the possible sentience of LLMs. Here, we examine one prominent LLM, OpenAI's GPT-4. Inquiry into the emergence of a complex subjective world is facilitated with philosophical phenomenology and cognitive ethology, examining the pattern of errors made by GPT-4 and proposing their origin in the absence of an analogue of the human subjective awareness of time. This deficit suggests that GPT-4 ultimately lacks a capacity to construct a stable perceptual world; the temporal vacuum undermines any capacity for GPT-4 to construct a consistent, continuously updated, model of its environment. Accordingly, none of GPT-4's statements are epistemically secure. Because the anthropomorphic illusion is so strong, I conclude by suggesting that GPT-4 works with its users to construct improvised works of fiction.

Evolved and Cultural Intuitions. Highly Speculative Remarks on the Origins of our Sense of Fairness

The question of whether the sense of fairness constitutes an exclusively human trait has been answered mostly from two polar positions: the first one unambiguously affirms such exclusivity, thus denying the relevance of cognitive ethology to understand our evaluations of justice; the second one, on the contrary, postulates the existence of a (proto) sense of fairness in non-human animals, strongly related to ours, which would make cognitive ethology highly relevant to understand the mechanisms on which our evaluative practices are based. From a position of extreme caution in relation to the possibility of (eventually) offering concrete evidence in favor of innatist theses such as the one I will defend here, I will suggest that i) in line with the rupturist positions, it is possible to preserve the human exclusivity of the sense of justice, ii) in line with the continuist positions, the relevance of studies coming from cognitive ethology is guaranteed, insofar as (ex hypotesi) our evaluative practices often take as input innate psychological dispositions shared with other species. Finally, I will suggest that the concept of rationalization is central to determine in each case the possible articulation between innate dispositions and explicit justifications.

Fieldwork results, anonymity, rare observations and cognition-questions of method, biases and interpretations

The study of birds in the natural environment largely falls into two disciplines: ecology and ethology. At this time of substantial decline of bird species and numbers, it is argued that ecology cannot do without ethology, especially cognitive ethology, if real progress of saving species is to be made. The paper is concerned with problems of methodology, partly to do with lack of familiarity with behaviour and characteristics of the species (the anonymity problem) on one hand and partly to do with an underestimation of the effects of ‘an ecology of fear'. It will raise the question of sampling bias, express concern about the use of technological gadgets that may produce large data sets but often too little of value. It is not just an argument of quantitative versus qualitative data but of distortions, oversights, and insights that are not used. Studying cognition and emotional intelligence are as important hallmarks of an animal's ability to cope in the current wildlife crisis as are knowing about migration routes. Moreover, there is little doubt that systematic discussions in ethology rarely prepare one on how to respond to unexpected or incidental behaviour and to discuss the future of ethological fieldwork and cognitive studies. Examples of rare behaviour will also be provided to show how they can be pivotal in good science when momentary surprises in witnessing unusual behaviour can lead to new insight, and then to experiments and data. The paper will suggest, however, that new insights may only be possible when a robust methodology used in field research reflects a positive, non-invasive approach.

Embodying cognitive ethology.

Cognitive psychology considers the environment as providing information, not affecting fundamental information processes. Thus, cognitive psychology's traditional paradigms study responses to precisely timed stimuli in controlled environments. However, new research demonstrates the environment does influence cognitive processes and offers cognitive psychology new methods. The authors examine one such proposal: cognitive ethology. Cognitive ethology improves cognitive psychology's ecological validity through first drawing inspiration from robust phenomena in the real world, then moving into the lab to test those phenomena. To support such methods, cognitive ethologists appeal to embodied cognition, or 4E cognition, for its rich relationships between agents and environments. However, the authors note while cognitive ethology focuses on new methods (epistemology) inspired by embodied cognition, it preserves most traditional assumptions about cognitive processes (ontology). But embodied cognition-particularly its radical variants-also provides strong ontological challenges to cognitive psychology, which work against cognitive ethology. The authors argue cognitive ethology should align with the ontology of less radical embodied cognition, which produces epistemological implications, offering alternative methodologies. For example, cognitive ethology can explore differences between real-world and lab studies to fully understand how cognition depends on environments.

Towards a Comparative Study of Animal Consciousness

In order to develop a true biological science of consciousness, we have to remove humans from the center of reference and develop a bottom-up comparative study of animal minds, as Donald Griffin intended with his call for a “cognitive ethology.” In this article, I make use of the pathological complexity thesis (Veit 2022a, b, c) to show that we can firmly ground a comparative study of animal consciousness by drawing on the resources of state-based behavioral life history theory. By comparing the different life histories of gastropods and arthropods, we will be able to make better sense of the possible origins of consciousness and its function for organisms in their natural environments.

Ethical considerations in wildlife medicine

Component wildlife ethics includes two aspects: an understanding of ethical principles and skills in ethical deliberation. Ethical principles reviewed here include utilitarianism, deontological ethics, environmentalism or respect for nature, virtue ethics, relational ethics, care ethics and reverence for life ethics. Other processes and tools that take into account human sociology, behaviour and subconscious functioning in moral decision-making include conservation psychology, narrative ethics, socioscience, listening and communication skills, and needs-based ethics. We also take into account non-human functioning such as welfare science, conservation behaviour and cognitive ethology. Incorporating these tools and instituting ethical practices and programs within our wildlife and conservation management plans and organizations improve our ability to care for ourselves, other humans, wildlife and ecosystems.

What does a bee know? A teleosemantic framework for cognitive ethologist

Naturalistic epistemology is usually associated with Quine?s turn from an a priori and traditional to a descriptive understanding of knowledge. In this paper, however, we will look at theories developed from Quine?s ideas - Millikan?s teleosemantics and Kornblith?s cognitive ethology. We will answer three questions: (i) Can a bee know?; (ii) What can a bee know?; and (iii) Does the bee know? First, we will answer the question of animal cognitive capacities using Kornblith?s understanding of the epistemic environment and the basic features of cognitive ethology. We will then set up teleosemantics as a framework in which Millikanin attempts to naturalize intentional states and answer the question of the knowledge content in animals. By understanding natural signs and considering the non-propositional content of mental representations in animals, we will answer the third question and show how Kornblith and cognitive ethologists attempt to track the processes of forming reliable true beliefs in different kinds of organisms. We will answer each of the three questions above by drawing on the research of apiologists and cognitive ethologists to provide empirical support for the theses of our work and so that we do not remain only on attempts, possible introductions, and anecdotes of naturalistic conceptions of knowledge, but provide concrete descriptions of the world and the place of knowledge in it.

Revisiting Donald Griffin, founder of cognitive ethology

Donald Griffin’s writings, beginning with The Question of Animal Awareness (1976), strove to persuade scientists to study the possibility of animal sentience, the basis of Rowan et al.’s efforts to promote animal well-being. Facing great hostility (but also some acceptance) for his ideas, Griffin initially avoided animal welfare advocacy, fearing it would further undermine his efforts to gain recognition of animal sentience. In later years, however, he began to ponder the ethical implications of animal sentience, intending to study wild elephants’ communication and social behavior to better understand their experienced life and apply it to improving conservation methods. As he recognized, ethical considerations require strategic prioritizing.

Bridging Captive and Wild Studies: Behavioral Plasticity and Social Complexity in Theropithecus gelada.

Simple SummaryAnimals are able to flexibly adjust their behavior according to both physical and social environmental changes. In this view, multiple data collections carried out in different settings are crucial to understand proximate and ultimate causes of such a behavioral plasticity. By selecting Theropithecus gelada as a model, we suggest that the complementary strengths and weaknesses of research in captive and wild settings makes such a hybrid approach particularly relevant. By providing information at different scales, the two settings can give a fuller picture of a behavioral trait. The apparent incongruity in behavior across captive and wild data is itself a powerful tool to explore behavioral plasticity and latent propensities. Finally, the two settings allow validating and exploring behavioral aspects that are noticed in the other settings. We really hope that our experiences and ideas can be helpful in stimulating other researchers to consider the captive-wild approach as a valid opportunity to reach a fuller picture of the behavior they are studying.Cognitive ethology explores the ability of animals to flexibly adapt their behavior to rapid physical and social environment fluctuations. Although there is a historical dichotomy between field and captive studies, recently, a growing interest in questions that sit at the intersection of cognitive and adaptive perspectives has helped bridge this divide. By focusing on Theropithecus gelada, we discuss the three main reasons why this hybrid approach is extremely successful. First, captive and wild studies provide data at different social, spatial, and temporal scales that can be synthesized to give a fuller picture of the behavior. Secondly, apparently conflicting results from captive and wild settings are powerful tools to explore behavioral flexibility and latent behavioral tendencies. Third, the different settings provide ways of validating and exploring behaviors that are noticed in the other setting. Although we were able to bring together our captive and wild research to demonstrate these ideas, we could have obtained a more integrated vision on the proximate and ultimate gelada behavioral and cognitive strategies if we had considered this hybrid approach from the beginning. We hope that this manuscript stimulates scholars in designing their studies by taking into account the incredible potential of a complementary captive-wild research approach.

Social Cognition in the Real World: Reconnecting the Study of Social Cognition With Social Reality

The scientific study of social cognition is a growing field which promises to deliver valuable insights into how the brain underpins human’s social success. However, the poor ecological validity of many popular paradigms constrains the progress of social cognitive scientists. Highly simplistic and contrived stimuli are commonplace, despite the complexity and unpredictability of real-world social experiences. A shift toward a cognitive ethology approach would allow us to determine if, when, and how specific cognitive processes contribute to real-world functioning. This shift would enable us to break new ground in our understanding of the cognitions which underpin so much of the human experience. To address these questions, we must innovate and test social cognitions in dynamic, multimodal, context-embedded, and interactive environments. Furthermore, measuring responses dynamically and in terms of accuracy (rather than based on arbitrary criteria defined by the experimenter), would improve ecological validity. Finally, researchers should take into account sample diversity and participants’ motivation to ensure the generalizability of findings to everyday interactions. This article considers these issues in turn and outlines recent research which demonstrates how they might be overcome.

Shakespeare's Cognitive Ethology: Bias as Plasticity

Shakespeare's Cognitive Ethology: Bias as Plasticity

Nonhuman animals and the future of environmental education: Empathy and new possibilities

ABSTRACTSimilar to other fields, environmental education has begun to embrace the significance of nonhuman animals. This essay examines developments in the natural sciences, particularly in the field of cognitive ethology, that focus on the concept of empathy as a paradigm for conceptualizing human/nonhuman animal relationships. Drawing on my own experience using this model of empathy in a course focused on animals, society, and education, I suggest ways that environmental education can incorporate these new understandings about nonhuman animal sentience, cognition and emotion into the field.

Humans on Top, Humans among the Other Animals: Narratives of Anthropological Difference

The relationship of humans to other primates – both in terms of abilities and evolution - has been an age-old topic of dispute in science. In this paper the claim is made that the different views of authors are based not so much on differences in empirical evidence, but on the ontological stances of the authors and the underlying ground narratives that they use. For comparing and reconciling the views presented by the representatives of, inter alia, cognitive ethology, comparative psychology, and zoosemiotics, an overarching approach of multi-constructivism is introduced. The paper proposes an analytic model (3C/GUTP) that distinguishes four logical possibilities in representing anthropological difference: Gradualism, Transformativism, Unitarism, and Pluralism. Using this typology, the views of C. Darwin, F. de Waal, M. Tomasello, and T. A. Sebeok regarding the similarities and differences between human and animal capacities for cognition, culture and communication (“3C”) are analyzed. The results indicate systematic differences in the selected narratives by these authors (e.g. Darwin – Gradualism, Tomasello - Transformativism) that can be related to the types of underlying ontologies.

From behaviour to consciousness: Translating what animals do to what animals think

Cognitive ethology, an interdisciplinary and comparative branch of zoology, is concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on animal behaviour. It enquires into the evolutionary value of consciousness. However, consciousness is hard to define and any account of animal behaviour based on it will need to take into account both the physical mechanisms that allow for consciousness, and also consider whether we can have knowledge of the phenomenal experience of consciousness in other species. While the first consideration can be investigated scientifically, phenomenal experience needs to be inferred from behaviour, since most animals are not capable of communicating this experience directly. In fact, many accounts of animal behaviour, behavioural ecology in particular, argue that we cannot accurately explain animal behaviour with relation to thoughts or feelings and conscious awareness of them. Rather, we must concern ourselves with what can be objectively observed and measured. Cognitive ethology, however, argues that we cannot give accurate accounts of complex animal behaviour, for example social interactions or tool use, without taking consciousness into account. In this article I will argue that one can justifiably assign and study consciousness in animals through their behaviour, and that an account of certain animals’ behaviour is incomplete without reference to conscious awareness. In other words, behavioural ecology is essentially flawed as it gives, in certain cases, ultimately incorrect accounts of animal behaviour. Firstly it cannot distinguish between behaviour of more and less conscious animals, and secondly, by avoiding any mention of consciousness, it narrows its own scope, and finally cannot explain complex behaviours such as learning in any meaningful way.

Farm Animal Cognition-Linking Behavior, Welfare and Ethics.

Farm animal welfare is a major concern for society and food production. To more accurately evaluate animal farming in general and to avoid exposing farm animals to poor welfare situations, it is necessary to understand not only their behavioral but also their cognitive needs and capacities. Thus, general knowledge of how farm animals perceive and interact with their environment is of major importance for a range of stakeholders, from citizens to politicians to cognitive ethologists to philosophers. This review aims to outline the current state of farm animal cognition research and focuses on ungulate livestock species, such as cattle, horses, pigs and small ruminants, and reflects upon a defined set of cognitive capacities (physical cognition: categorization, numerical ability, object permanence, reasoning, tool use; social cognition: individual discrimination and recognition, communication with humans, social learning, attribution of attention, prosociality, fairness). We identify a lack of information on certain aspects of physico-cognitive capacities in most farm animal species, such as numerosity discrimination and object permanence. This leads to further questions on how livestock comprehend their physical environment and understand causal relationships. Increasing our knowledge in this area will facilitate efforts to adjust husbandry systems and enrichment items to meet the needs and preferences of farm animals. Research in the socio-cognitive domain indicates that ungulate livestock possess sophisticated mental capacities, such as the discrimination between, and recognition of, conspecifics as well as human handlers using multiple modalities. Livestock also react to very subtle behavioral cues of conspecifics and humans. These socio-cognitive capacities can impact human-animal interactions during management practices and introduce ethical considerations on how to treat livestock in general. We emphasize the importance of gaining a better understanding of how livestock species interact with their physical and social environments, as this information can improve housing and management conditions and can be used to evaluate the use and treatment of animals during production.

In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity by Patricia Cox Miller

Reviewed by: In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity by Patricia Cox Miller Anna Lisa Taylor In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity Patricia Cox Miller Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. 280. ISBN 978-0-81-225035-0 This is the fourth of Miller's books with "imagination" in the title, indicating a broader project of mapping the thought world of Late Antiquity. Earlier works [End Page 556] explored how writers interpreted dreams (Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture, 1997), thought about religion and language (The Poetry of Thought in Late Antiquity: Essays in Imagination and Religion, 2001), and understood the relation of holiness and materiality (The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity, 2016). In her new work, which looks at Christian writers' use of nonhuman animals, she argues that authors who presented the prevailing "rhetoric of human superiority and domination" paradoxically also challenged the hierarchical human/animal binary. Through zoomorphism (representing humans like animals), anthropomorphism (representing animals like humans, especially in the possession of speech and reason), and stories of interspecies encounters, these sources collapsed the distance between human and animal. Miller positions this book in animality studies, which is distinguished from animal studies by its lack of overt political engagement in animal rights. Recuperating a Christian sympathy toward animals, and nature is, however, implicitly a political move. The book is widely interdisciplinary, drawing on philosophy, cognitive ethology, affect theory, new materialism, and—perhaps to show the enduring resonance of animals in the human imagination or to add color, light, and movement—twentieth-century poetry. Each of Miller's chapters examines a different way in whichh late antique Christian texts undermined the unstable human/animal binary and the devaluation of the latter. Chapter 1 looks at how birds function as metaphors for thought, spiritual ascent, and imagination. Chapters 2 and 3 consider examples of zoomorphism and anthropomorphism respectively in "animal-friendly" (68) exegetical texts including those by Augustine, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nyssa, and in the late-third-century Egyptian Physiologus. Following contemporary ethologists, Miller rehabilitates anthropomorphism from its "mawkish" reputation (80), seeing it as both unavoidable and as a tool for understanding other species. The "shared creatureliness" (50) of human and animal is the basis of what philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls a "strange kinship" that allows for radical cross-species sympathy and undermines the always fraught boundary between the human and the animal. Further, since exegetical readings treated them as signifiers to be read allegorically, rather than literal animals, "Scriptural animals were freed from animals' debased position" (56) to become role models and moral exemplars for humans. Only in the coda to Chapter 2 does she admit that Origen's zoomorphism is "mostly negative" and that he likens humans to animals to express "an interior menagerie that is violent and savage" (76). Chapter 4 reads the encounters between monks and wild animals in the fantastic stories of the desert ascetics. Occasionally a talking animal threatens the human monopoly on logos, but usually the compassionate cross-species engagement is expressed through a shared language of gesture and touch. Chapter 5 looks at the "vibrant materiality" of small creatures, to present a cosmos teeming with life, which writers approached with both disgust and "theological wonder." Miller enlivens and re-enchants an early Christian landscape that has often appeared devoid of sympathy with nature. By centering the animals, she reveals a hidden richness in Christian views of the material world. She provides an [End Page 557] important corrective to the "absurdly reductive" (51) equation of early Christianity with anthropocentrism, and proves the existence of a powerful "countercurrent" (4) of cross-species compassion. Like the texts she studies, Miller's book also circles a paradox: she centers animals, but there are no real animals here. This fantastic menagerie—featuring bodyguard crows, speaking lionesses, vegetarian lions, celibate widowed doves, monogamous elephants, serpenteating deer, "obedient bedbugs" (103), a crocodile who serves as a raft, and an incorruptible peacock cutlet—contains no trace of real animals. The stories are frequently at odds with biology (134). In her introduction, she quotes historian...

Redefending Nonhuman Justice in Complex Animal Communities: A Response to Jacobs

Abstract In response to my argument against Aristotle’s claim that humans are more political than other animals, Edward Jacobs counters that the evidence I use from cognitive ethology and my application of evolutionary principles fail to demonstrate that other animals are as political as humans. Jacobs furthermore suggests that humans are more political than other animals by pointing to the political variation in human communities. In this article, I defend my use of evolutionary principles and my interpretation of anecdotes from cognitive ethology, while challenging Jacobs’s assertion that human political variation implies that humans are more political than other animals.

“Aristotle and the Zoon Politkon”: A Response to Abbate

Abstract Cheryl Abbate’s (2016) article in this journal makes the case that many nonhuman animals are “political” in the Aristotelian sense (Politics; Nicomachean Ethics). Moreover, Abbate rejects the claim that anthrôpos (Homo sapiens) is the most political of animals. While the aim to deflate often overexaggerated distinctions between us and other animals is laudable, in the following I suggest that Abbate’s evidence from cognitive ethology, and her application of evolutionary principles, fall short of demonstrating other animals to be as political as anthrôpos.

Thinking and Language in the Body / Psyche Issue: A Cognitive Ethology Focused on Human Being

This article aims to investigate the relationship between thinking and language. In the early years of life, natural language develops in close connection with intelligence, configuring broadly the features of thought. The child's mind has a limited number of reference systems from which it can, through experience, constitute the qualities that underlie the processing of knowledge and the skills formed at the representation level. In maturity, at the same time as the development of thinking, the mind constructs signification and communication procedures that go beyond natural language. The language of a community is a development environment for the individual due to the close relationship between thinking and speech. By summoning various cultural resources, we can conclude that the language contains our image of the world: in this regard, symbolic imagination is stronger than iconic (based on signs and symptoms of visual). We will address the body / psyche problem and not the body / soul from the point of view of the philosophy of mind. Consequently, we will use the scientific themes of body and psyche. Our body is clearly and distinctly perceived by the other bodies and its perception also indicates a direction of exploration of the world from the inside to the outside: my body, the bodies of the others, then the anorganic bodies in the outer space.

If film is a language, can birds make movies? An essay and two heretical descriptive systems

The work presented here uses the analogy of artists as talking birds and draws on research from cognitive ethology, linguistics, and film studies to ask, what kind of knowledge does art produce? Drawn diagrams and short structural videos illustrate but perhaps complicate or even obfuscate various parts of the text. The starting point is a 1966 film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, 'The Hawks and the Sparrows', alongside his essay published with the script, 'The Cinema of Poetry'. That text made a compelling argument about the nature of cinematic language, while his film imagined a world in which birds could speak. This essay – made up of text, drawn diagrams, and short video loops – takes the next logical step and asks, can birds make movies? The question is left unanswered, at least explicitly, and remains a figure or stand in for artistic forms of knowledge, research, and thought. This essay may not be of interest to those studying linguistics, cognitive ethology, or film history in earnest, but rather to those interested in visual forms of knowledge production and communication, humanistic explorations of the natural sciences, and the history of ideas. This presentation is the first of a three-part series titled 'The Artist’s Field Library', an arrangement of essays and source materials that explore the mutually transformative relationship between art and the university. The second essay in the series deals with academic institutions as the site of artistic and political practices, as well as what stands to be won or lost, and the third deals with critical pedagogy.