Do nonhuman animals reason about prestige-based status?

Status is a complex, but crucially important, aspect of life across species. In recent decades, researchers have made significant contributions to our understanding of both the pathways by which status can be attained, as well as our underlying capacities for reasoning about these pathways. In 2001, Henrich & Gil-White proposed a prestige-based pathway to status where low status actors willingly defer to competent or knowledgeable high status actors, as a means of facilitating social learning and cultural transmission. Although this type of status hierarchy, and the capacity to reason about it, was hypothesized to be unique to humans, here I argue that there are several reasons why we might observe prestige-based status, and the capacity for reasoning about this pathway to status, in some nonhuman species as well. These reasons focus on the prevalence, importance, and sophistication of social learning in certain taxa, as well as the marked variation in hierarchy characteristics and structure across species. I point out places where our current methodologies encounter difficulties distinguishing whether a hierarchy in the wild is based on dominance or prestige, where our experimental methods leave us unable to assess whether an individual is reasoning about a high status actor as being prestigious or formidable, and provide suggestions for addressing these limitations. Adopting a comparative approach will clarify whether prestige-based status truly is unique to humans, and—if not—precisely what selective pressures facilitate the emergence of prestige-based status and the capacity for reasoning about it.

Coordinating social action: A primer for the cross-species investigation of communicative repair

Human joint action is inherently cooperative, manifested in the collaborative efforts of participants to minimize communicative trouble through interactive repair. Although interactive repair requires sophisticated cognitive abilities, it can be dissected into basic building blocks shared with nonhuman animal species. A review of the primate literature shows that interactionally contingent signal sequences are at least common among species of nonhuman great apes, suggesting a gradual evolution of repair. To pioneer a cross-species assessment of repair this paper aims at (i) identifying necessary precursors of human interactive repair; (ii) proposing a coding framework for its comparative study in humans and nonhuman species; and (iii) using this framework to analyse examples of interactions of humans (adults/children) and nonhuman great apes. We hope this paper will serve as a primer for cross-species comparisons on dealing with communicative breakdowns.

Animal Linguistics: A Primer

The evolution of language is investigated by various research communities (including biologists and linguists) which engage in comparative works to highlight similar linguistic capacities across species. So far though, no consensus exists on linguistic capacities of nonhuman species. Rather, vivid debates have emerged, mostly fuelled by misuses of linguistic terminology, irrelevance of analysis methods and inappropriate behavioural data collection. The field of ‘animal linguistics’ has recently emerged to overcome these difficulties, notably by increasing exchanges and collaborations across disciplines, in an attempt to reach unique methods and terminology.This primer on ‘animal linguistics’ is a tutorial review on the study of animal communication using both linguistic and biological methods, aimed at both the linguistic and biology communities. Specifically, it aims at accompanying researchers from either of these fields to collect data, run analyses and draw conclusions step by step, and in a way that could satisfy the other research community. To this end, it first exposes the linguistic theoretical concepts of semantics, pragmatics and syntax, and proposes the minimal criteria that are to be fulfilled to claim that a given species displays one – or several – linguistic capacities. Second, it reviews relevant methods successfully applied to the study of animal data. Third, it proposes guidelines to detect and overcome major pitfalls commonly observed in the collection of animal behaviour data. As observed in the past history of science, research traditions can be fragile if not sustained by collaborative communities. We believe this article to represent a milestone towards mutual understanding and fruitful collaborations between linguists and biologists.

A comparative test of inequity aversion in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and dingoes (Canis dingo)

Despite much recent empirical work on inequity aversion in nonhuman species, many questions remain about its distribution across taxa and the factors that shape its evolution and expression. Past work suggests that domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus) are averse to inequitable resource distributions in contexts that call upon some degree of training such as ‘give paw’ and ‘buzzer press’ tasks. However, it is unclear whether inequity aversion appears in other canid species and in other experimental contexts. Using a novel inequity aversion task that does not require specific training, this study helps address these gaps by investigating inequity aversion in domestic dogs and a closely related but non-domesticated canid, the dingo (Canis dingo). Subjects were presented with equal and unequal reward distributions and given the opportunity to approach or refuse to approach allocations. Measures of interest were (1) subjects’ refusal to approach when getting no food; (2) approach latency; and (3) social referencing. None of these measures differed systematically across the inequity condition and control conditions in either dogs or dingoes. These findings add to the growing literature on inequity aversion in canids, providing data from a new species and a new experimental context. Additionally, they raise questions about the experimental features that must be in place for inequity aversion to appear in canids.

Minor Acoustics

The essay explores sound as a dynamic medium for facilitating and enabling unique forms of relationality. Specifically, this leads to investigating how sound contributes to socially engaged and sited art work, affording involvement in radical forms of sharing and affinity. From nonhuman species to abandoned buildings, found matter to strange publics, practices of sound art often steer us towards experimental forms of relationality, where experiences of contact are elaborated beyond the strictly social. Such an auditory position may challenge and extend a politics of identity and community, shifting the dominant discourses of social recognition. Following such relational views, sound is underscored as a means for enriching the complexity of what it means to live together in this global environment.

Representing nonhuman animals as equals: An ecolinguistic analysis of vegan campaigns

Ecolinguistics studies the interactions between language and ecology. It investigates whether the stories created by language are destructive or beneficial to all the constituents of the environment. In search of positive stories for our environment, this article focuses on vegan campaigns which generally bring awareness about veganism that, in turn, advocates protection of nonhuman animals and abstention from their exploitation. Nonhuman animals are part of the ecosystem and the way they are portrayed in language may determine the relationship between human and nonhuman animals. As vegan campaigns refer to nonhuman animals as sentient living beings, it is important to analyze whether the language and image of these campaigns articulate their purposes and create beneficial stories for nonhuman species. This article explores the stories regarding nonhuman animals in 27 posters of the vegan campaign “Go Vegan World” and examines how these stories are shaped and whether they are aligned with vegan values. The study is approached from an ecolinguistic perspective with a focus on multimodality where the language was analyzed through van Leeuwen’s Social Actor and Social Action theory, and the image was analyzed with Kress and van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design. Further, the analysis involves the ecosophy defined as a personal ecological philosophy of relationships between human and nonhuman animals, plants, and the physical environment. The findings suggest that the campaign language and image shape three stories: salience where nonhuman animals are individuals with their own feelings and lives; conviction that nonhuman animals matter as much as humans; ideology where biocentrism is promoted. By comparing these stories with the article’s ecosophy, an ecolinguistic analysis showed that they are largely beneficial in representing nonhuman animals as sentient living beings who are equal to humans.

The Difficult Integration between Human and Animal Studies on Emotional Lateralization: A Perspective Article

Even if for many years hemispheric asymmetries have been considered as a uniquely human feature, an increasing number of studies have described hemispheric asymmetries for various behavioral functions in several nonhuman species. An aspect of animal lateralization that has attracted particular attention has concerned the hemispheric asymmetries for emotions, but human and animal studies on this subject have been developed as independent lines of investigation, without attempts for their integration. In this perspective article, after an illustration of factors that have hampered the integration between human and animal studies on emotional lateralization, I will pass to analyze components and stages of the processing of emotions to distinguish those which point to a continuum between humans and many animal species, from those which suggest a similarity only between humans and great apes. The right lateralization of sympathetic functions (involved in brain and bodily activities necessary in emergency situations) seems consistent across many animal species, whereas asymmetries in emotional communication and in structures involved in emotional experience, similar to those observed in humans, have been documented only in primates.

Pale Horse

The third benefit of no longer eating animals is a reduction in the prevalence of zoonotic diseases: diseases acquired from a nonhuman, vertebrate host. The majority of temperate diseases, almost all tropical diseases, and probably all newly emerging infectious diseases are zoonoses or they have zoonotic origins. A zoonotic pathogen can go through five stages, in which it transforms from one that afflicts only nonhuman species to one that is exclusively human. There are several factors that determine the likelihood of such a transformation. The most important of these, since it is most under our control, is the frequency of encounters between us and the animal reservoir. Eating animals and disturbing their environment are the two forms of human behavior most likely to increase frequency of encounters. Moreover, most disturbance of the environment is caused by expansion in animal agriculture. Eating animals, therefore, is the most important cause of zoonotic diseases.

Mechanisms of Nausea and Vomiting: Current Knowledge and Recent Advances in Intracellular Emetic Signaling Systems

Nausea and vomiting are common gastrointestinal complaints that can be triggered by diverse emetic stimuli through central and/or peripheral nervous systems. Both nausea and vomiting are considered as defense mechanisms when threatening toxins/drugs/bacteria/viruses/fungi enter the body either via the enteral (e.g., the gastrointestinal tract) or parenteral routes, including the blood, skin, and respiratory systems. While vomiting is the act of forceful removal of gastrointestinal contents, nausea is believed to be a subjective sensation that is more difficult to study in nonhuman species. In this review, the authors discuss the anatomical structures, neurotransmitters/mediators, and corresponding receptors, as well as intracellular emetic signaling pathways involved in the processes of nausea and vomiting in diverse animal models as well as humans. While blockade of emetic receptors in the prevention of vomiting is fairly well understood, the potential of new classes of antiemetics altering postreceptor signal transduction mechanisms is currently evolving, which is also reviewed. Finally, future directions within the field will be discussed in terms of important questions that remain to be resolved and advances in technology that may help provide potential answers.

Disentangling perceptual awareness from nonconscious processing in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Scholars have long debated whether animals, which display impressive intelligent behaviors, are consciously aware or not. Yet, because many complex human behaviors and high-level functions can be performed without conscious awareness, it was long considered impossible to untangle whether animals are aware or just conditionally or nonconsciously behaving. Here, we developed an empirical approach to address this question. We harnessed a well-established cross-over double dissociation between nonconscious and conscious processing, in which people perform in completely opposite ways when they are aware of stimuli versus when they are not. To date, no one has explored if similar performance dissociations exist in a nonhuman species. In a series of seven experiments, we first established these signatures in humans using both known and newly developed nonverbal double-dissociation tasks and then identified similar signatures in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). These results provide robust evidence for two distinct modes of processing in nonhuman primates. This empirical approach makes it feasible to disentangle conscious visual awareness from nonconscious processing in nonhuman species; hence, it can be used to strip away ambiguity when exploring the processes governing intelligent behavior across the animal kingdom. Taken together, these results strongly support the existence of both nonconscious processing as well as functional human-like visual awareness in nonhuman animals.