Language capacities of nonhuman animals

Episodic Memory in Nonhuman Animals

Episodic memories differ from other types of memory because they represent aspects of the past not present in other memories, such as the time, place, or social context in which the memories were formed. Focus on phenomenal experience in human memory, such as the sense of 'having been there', has resulted in conceptualizations of episodic memory that are difficult or impossible to apply to nonh...

The use of nonhuman animals in research.

Language capacities: Is grammar special?

Some of the more heated debates in the cognitive sciences revolve around the nature of human language. Is there innate linguistic knowledge? Does language require the ability to learn and use symbolic rules, or can it be explained solely through associative capacities? And how autonomous is language — is the ability to learn to speak the result of more general social, cognitive and perceptual a...

Humane killing of nonhuman animals for disease control purposes.

Reports and guidelines produced by international institutions such as the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE, 2005) describe various methods of killing nonhuman animals. Selection and implementation of a killing method may involve several factors. Preventing or minimizing risk to human health and safety may override animal welfare concerns if the disease has the potential to cause high m...

Sociobiology and the Moral Status of Nonhuman Animals

RD. Alexander (1987) has proposed that the ultimate grounds of ethics are evolutionary. Humans have the capacity for moral reasoning and negotiation, together with a system of appropriate emotions, such as shame and guilt when we do wrong, and a sense ofmoral wellbeing when we do right, because these abilities tended to increase our ancestors' inclusive fitness in the past. Fairly simple mathem...