Affective experience and evidence for animal consciousness.
Abstract
Affective experience in nonhuman animals is of great interest for both theoretical and practical reasons. This paper highlights research by the psychologists Anthony Dickinson and Bernard Balleine which provides particularly good evidence of conscious affective experience in rats. This evidence is compelling because it implicates a sophisticated system for goal-directed action selection, and demonstrates a contrast between apparently conscious and unconscious evaluative representations with similar content. Meanwhile, the evidence provided by some well-known studies on pain in nonhuman animals is much less convincing. This comparison may offer lessons for the future study of animal consciousness.
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Since position-dependent and evaluative contents operate synergistically in our own consciousness, an emergent consciousness would be expected to contain both, which accords with the argument that affect should lie at the core of an evolved consciousness.
“Since these operate in a synergistic way in our own consciousness, the expectation is that an emergent consciousness would contain both, which accords with the argument that affect should lie at the core of an evolved consciousness (e.g., see Cabanac, 1992; Dickinson and Balleine, 2010; Butlin, 2020; Cleeremans and Tallon-Baudry, 2022).”
From The function(s) of consciousness revisited: insights from a modular/constitutive model using vision as a test case (2026) · cites this paper as Butlin, 2020
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“…in our own consciousness, the expectation is that an emergent consciousness would contain both, which accords with the argument that affect should lie at the core of an evolved consciousness (e.g., see Cabanac, 1992; Dickinson and Balleine, 2010; Butlin, 2020; Cleeremans and Tallon-Baudry, 2022).”
- Authors
- Butlin, P., & University of Arkansas Press
- Corresponding author
- Butlin, Patrick
- ORCID
- Butlin, Patrick
- Venue
- Philosophical Topics
- Publisher
- Philosophy Documentation Center
- Published
- 2020
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 109-127
- ISSN
- 0276-2080 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3209743885
- Cited by
- 6
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 0.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Philosophical Topics (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Keywords
- animal consciousness, emotional experience, rats
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