U.S. University leads research on animals' emotions in Costa Rica

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Published on Monday, November 25, 2024
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff and wire services

A survey of 100 researchers of animal behavior, led by investigators of the U.S. Emory University in Costa Rica, provides a unique view of current scientific thought on animal emotions and consciousness.

According to Marcela Benítez, assistant professor of anthropology at Emory University and corresponding author of the research, this is the first assessment of how animal behavior researchers across a range of disciplines think about emotions and consciousness in non-human animals. “It gives us a snapshot in time so that 20 years from now, we can revisit how scientific experts may have changed their views,” she said.

Benítez work is unique in that she studies behavior in both a captive population of tufted capuchins and of wild white-faced capuchins as co-director of the Capuchins de Taboga Costa Rica project located in Liberia Canton, Guanacaste Province.

A majority of the survey respondents ascribed emotions to “most” or “all or nearly all” non-human primates (98%), other mammals (89%), birds (78%), octopus, squids and cuttlefish (72%) and fish (53%). Most of the respondents ascribed emotions to at least some members of each taxonomic group of animals considered, including insects (67%) and other invertebrates (71%).

The survey also included questions about the risks in animal behavioral research of anthropomorphism (inaccurately projecting human experience onto animals) and anthropodenial (willful blindness to any human characteristics of animals).

“It’s surprising that 89% of the respondents thought that anthropodenial was problematic in animal behavioral research, compared to only 49% who thought anthropomorphism poses a risk,” Benítez says. “That seems like a big shift.”

Anthropomorphism, she notes, has long been a leading argument against those who attribute feelings to animals.

Benítez’s work lies at the intersection of anthropology, psychology and evolutionary biology. She currently studies cooperation and other social behaviors in capuchin monkeys.

“A key component of cooperation often involves forming emotional bonds with one another,” she says. “So, I can’t shy away from considering emotions in my research.”

As the field has grown, Benítez and colleagues wanted to quantify animal behavior researchers’ perceptions of the taxonomic distribution of animal emotionality. They developed a survey of multiple-choice questions, free-form text fields and rating scales and sent it to leading graduate school programs in animal behavior research across disciplines. They also posted solicitations for the survey on X, aimed at researchers in these fields.

The 100 survey respondents spanned a range of specialties, including behavioral ecologists, evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, biological anthropologists, cognitive psychologists and biological psychologists. They comprised graduate students (45), faculty (28), postdoctoral fellows (20), retired faculty (2), other PhD researchers (3) and undergraduate students (2).

The most common taxa of animals studied among respondents were birds (43%), non-human primates (32%) and other mammals, though each of the taxa that the survey asked respondents to assess was studied by at least some members of the sample.

The survey defined displays of animal consciousness in its most basic form, meaning that they are aware of their own existence. A majority of respondents ascribed consciousness to a broad taxonomic breadth of animals, although at slightly lower majorities as compared to emotions.

Near the end of the survey, respondents were asked to define emotion.

A little more than half of their definitions referred to emotions as a response to either internal or external stimuli. A majority also referred to emotions being subjective experiences or related to consciousness or mindedness. And 40% of the responses identified emotions as functioning to motivate behaviors.

Only 81 out of the 100 survey respondents provided a definition, perhaps due to the challenge of verbalizing a working description.

“I don’t have a clear definition either,” Benítez says. “I see emotions as a sort of internal process in responding to external stimuli that has an impact on how a situation is perceived. I go to the most basic definition because that allows us to explore that capacity in non-human primates.”

Even in human studies, Benítez adds, it is challenging to determine which biological markers to measure and how to adequately describe and quantify something as complex and variable as emotions. They may include everything from instinctual reactions of disgust or fear to deep feelings of affection and empathy for others.

Animal studies are further complicated by the fact that researchers can’t ask an animal how it’s feeling.

While experiments with animals in labs can be tightly controlled, the results may be skewed since the animal is not interacting within its natural environment. Animal behavior experiments in the wild provide valid social and ecological contexts but they are challenging to design and control.

Benítez and her collaborators at Universidad Technica Nacional, the state-owned university based in Alajuela Province, are beginning to deploy AI techniques, and facial recognition soft touch screen computers on presentation platforms in the wild. These tools may help them get at many questions surrounding capuchin monkey behavior, including how they decide whether to cooperate or compete with one another while they are interacting in their natural world.

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How can studying animal emotions help improve animal protection laws? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com

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