Expression Of Emotions In Animals Research Articles

Roles of Nutrients in the Brain Development, Cognitive Function, and Mood of Dogs and Cats.

The brain is the central commander of all physical activities and the expression of emotions in animals. Its development and cognitive health critically depend on the neural network that consists of neurons, glial cells (namely, non-neuronal cells), and neurotransmitters (communicators between neurons). The latter include proteinogenic amino acids (e.g., L-glutamate, L-aspartate, and glycine) and their metabolites [e.g., γ-aminobutyrate, D-aspartate, D-serine, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and monoamines (e.g., dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and serotonin)]. In addition, some non-neurotransmitter metabolites of amino acids, such as taurine, creatine, and carnosine, also play important roles in brain development, cognitive health, behavior, and mood of dogs and cats. Much evidence shows that cats require dietary ω3 (α-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid) and ω6 (linoleic acid and arachidonic acid) polyunsaturated fatty acids for the development of the central nervous system. As an essential component of membranes of neurons and glial cells, cholesterol is also crucial for cognitive development and function. In addition, vitamins and minerals are required for the metabolism of AAs, lipids, and glucose in the nervous system, and also act as antioxidants. Thus, inadequate nutrition will lead to mood disorders. Some amino acids (e.g., arginine, glycine, methionine, serine, taurine, tryptophan, and tyrosine) can help to alleviate behavioral and mood disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety and aggression). As abundant providers of all these functional amino acids and lipids, animal-sourced foods (e.g., liver, intestinal mucosa, and meat) play important roles in brain development, cognitive function, and mood of dogs and cats. This may explain, in part, why dogs and cats prefer to eat visceral organs of their prey. Adequate provision of nutrients in all phases of the life cycle (pregnancy, lactation, postnatal growth, and adulthood) is essential for optimizing neurological health, while preventing cognitive dysfunction and abnormal behavior.

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Darwin’s antithesis revisited – a zoosemiotic perspective on expressing emotions in animals and animal cartoon characters

In the animation and design of cartoon characters, animators have often turned to the study of biological theories and observation of human actors and animals to capture lifelike movements and emotions more successfully. Charles Darwin’s principle of antithesis, as one of the principles he considered to be responsible for the expression of emotions in animals, would seem to be of distinctive importance in the development of animation. By revisiting Darwin’s original idea in the context of the principles of animation formulated by Thomas and Johnston, we are able to assess its application and relevance in the expressions of emotions in cartoon animal characters. The article concentrates on the emotive function of animal social communication as outlined in zoosemiotics, while taking into account that the expressions of animal characters are directed at the viewer. The principle of antithesis, as a descriptive tool, aids us in considering the diversity of modalities used simultaneously in affective communication, and serves to explicate human interpretations of the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic projections onto the behaviour of cartoon animal characters. This paper offers insight into the potential expansion and re-evaluation of unattested principles in animation, which can be utilized by animators in the creation of more dynamic and expressive animated characters.

Unearthening Old Data: Darwin was Indeed Correct About Earthworm Behavior

Charles Darwin is well known for his studies on the expression of emotions in animals and humans and as founding father of the concept of sexual selection. Yet it is commonly believed that the various arguments Darwin developed about behavior were usually illustrated only by anecdotes and observations recounted by explorers, naturalists, or zookeepers, and lacking any experimental approach. Here we show that this is not true. In his last book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms (1881), Darwin mentions a series of meticulous experiments he ran to test his hypotheses about why earthworms plug their burrows and comes to the conclusion that earthworms seem to act in an intelligent way. His study can still function as a prime example of how to design an experiment for testing hypotheses. Only one part was missing in Darwin’s research: statistical analyses. We retrieved his data and analyzed them statistically. Based on these results, we cannot reject his conclusion as the statistical analyses confirmed Darwin was right. This shows that Charles Darwin already used a hypothetico-deductive approach, and he can thus be seen as the first true behavioral ecologist—a representative of a discipline that has been recognized for only about a hundred years.

The emperor's new anthropomorphism.

Anthropomorphism--the attribution to nonhuman species of human mental qualities--originated in the search for psychological continuity between species following the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Eclipsed by Behaviorism and classical ethology, mentalistic has undergone a r Skinner's reasons for rejecting remain valid today. Mentalistic explanations involve explanatory fictions, they imply a mental homunculus, they rely on introspection, and they are not parsimonious. Thoug y branch of science, to use folk psychological notions of human psychology in attempting to understand animal behavior cannot be constructive. Key words: Anthropomorphism, mentalism, behaviorism ********** use of the word Anthropomorphism to describe the ascription of human qualities to nonhuman species is a product of the Darwinian revolution. original sense of this word (and still the only one listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 2005) is the attribution of human form to a deity. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (1989), the extension of the word to animals is due to George Henry Lewes in his 1858 book, Seaside Studies. Lewes, believing that mollusks have eyes but only a rudimentary sensitivity to light, wrote that, we speak large latitude of when we speak of the 'vision' of these animals. (Lewes, 1862, p. 359.) Lewes' book was first published the year before Darwin's Origin of Species (1859). Lewes and Darwin were acquainted each other, and clearly it was Darwin's emphasis on psychological continuity between humans and other species, especially as developed in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of Emotions in Animals and Men (1872) that created a niche for the use of in this new sense. Though Darwin wrote that there was fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental (Darwin, 1882, p. 66) he never used the term in his published writings. It was his protege, George Romanes, who gave the term wider currency by making inverted anthropomorphism his method in, Animal Intelligence (1884). ... Just as the theologians tell us--and logically enough--that if there is a Divine Mind, the best, and indeed only, conception we can form of it is that which is formed on the analogy, however imperfect, supplied by the human mind; so 'inverted anthropomorphism' we must apply a similar consideration a similar conclusion to the animal mind. mental states of an insect may be widely different from those of a man, and yet most probably the nearest conception that we can form of their true nature is that which we form by assimilating them to the pattern of the only mental states which we are actually acquainted. (Romanes, 1884, p. 10). Skinner (1938) would later write that it was Conway Lloyd Morgan who, with his law of parsimony, dispensed [mental faculties in animals] in a reasonably successful attempt to account for characteristic animal behavior without them. (1938, p. 4). However, Skinner's characterization of Morgan's Canon (or basal principle as he called it, 1894, p. 53) was substantially in error. Morgan's intent was not in any way to banish mentalistic explanation from the study of animal psychology. His 1894 work, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology commences fulsome praise of the recently deceased Romanes. Morgan's argument was not Romanes' anthropomorphic method--the method of inferring animal mentation by analogy human mental life. Morgan's only concern was that the interpretation be constrained by some principles of parsimony. his oft-quoted maxim, Morgan stated; In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale. …

The developmental roots of consciousness and emotional experience

Charles Darwin is generally credited with having formulated the first systematic attempt to explain the evolutionary origins and function of the expression of emotions in animals and humans. His ingenious theory, however, was burdened with popular misconceptions about human phylogenetic heritage and bore the philosophical and theoretical deficiencies of the brain science of his era that his successors strove to overcome. In their attempts to rectify Darwin’s errors, William James, James Mark Baldwin and John Dewey each made important contributions to a theory of emotion, which attempted to put it on a more secure philosophical and scientific footing. My contention is that Dewey and his collaborator, infant experimentalist Myrtle McGraw, succeeded where their contemporaries failed. They pointed the way out of the morass of recapitulationism, and showed how a developmental theory of consciousness, mind and emotion could be formulated that avoided the epistemological and ontological pitfalls of Darwin’s theory. Drawing on an extensive body of research from contemporary experimental studies of infant development, this essay attempts to put the questions raised by these historical figures about the structure, function and value of emotions in a theoretical framework. A developmental theory is proposed about the complex, interacting neurobiological and neurobehavioral factors that contribute to human emotional development. This theory identifies the possible relationships among emotions, consciousness and mind and how their co-development influences the capacity of young children to form moral judgments.

Animal Emotions: Exploring Passionate Natures

depression, and dogs happiness and dejection? People disagree about the nature of emotions in nonhuman animal beings (hereafter animals), especially concerning the question of whether any animals other than humans can feel emotions (Ekman 1998). Pythagoreans long ago believed that animals experience the same range of emotions as humans (Coates 1998), and current research provides compelling evidence that at least some animals likely feel a full range of emotions, including fear, joy, happiness, shame, embarrassment, resentment, jealousy, rage, anger, love, pleasure, compassion, respect, relief, disgust, sadness, despair, and grief (Skutch 1996, Poole 1996, 1998, Panksepp 1998, Archer 1999, Cabanac 1999, Bekoff 2000). The expression of emotions in animals raises a number of stimulating and challenging questions to which relatively little systematic empirical research has been devoted, especially among free-ranging animals. Popular accounts (e.g., Masson and McCarthy’s When Elephants Weep, 1995) have raised awareness of animal emotions, especially among nonscientists, and provided scientists with much useful information for further systematic research. Such books have also raised hackles among many scientists for being “too soft”—that is, too anecdotal, misleading, or sloppy (Fraser 1996). However, Burghardt (1997a), despite finding some areas of concern in Masson and McCarthy’s book, wrote: “I predict that in a few years the phenomena described here will be confirmed, qualified, and extended” (p. 23). Fraser (1996) also noted that the book could serve as a useful source for motivating future systematic empirical research. Researchers interested in exploring animal passions ask such questions as: Do animals experience emotions? What, if anything, do they feel? Is there a line that clearly separates those species that experience emotions from those that do not? Much current research follows Charles Darwin’s (1872; see also Ekman 1998) lead, set forth in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin argued that there is continuity between the emotional lives of humans and those of other animals, and that the differences among many animals are in degree rather than in kind. In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin claimed that “the lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery” (p. 448).

REVIEW ■ : Toward a Neurobiology of Emotion and Feeling: Operational Concepts and Hypotheses

By the end of the 19th century, Charles Darwin had made incisive observations on the expression of emotions in animals and humans and had placed emotion in the perspective of biological evolution; William James had produced a scientific description of the phenomenon of emotion, thus opening the way to its experimental study; and Sigmund Freud was writing about the means by which emotion might play a role in psychopa thology. Somebody freshly arrived on earth in 1994 and interested in the topic of emotion would have good cause to wonder why such groundbreaking developments did not lead to an assault on the neurobiology of emotion. What could possibly have gone wrong in the intervening century? The Neuroscientist 1:19-25, 1995