PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Self-awareness not unique to mankind

2015-06-15
(Press-News.org) Humans are unlikely to be the only animal capable of self-awareness, a new study has shown.

Conducted by University of Warwick researchers, the study found that humans and other animals capable of mentally simulating environments require at least a primitive sense of self. The finding suggests that any animal that can simulate environments must have a form of self-awareness.

Often viewed as one of man's defining characteristics, the study strongly suggests that self-awareness is not unique to mankind and is instead likely to be common among animals.

The researchers, from the University of Warwick's Departments of Phycology and Philosophy, used thought experiments to discover which capabilities animals must have in order to mentally simulate their environment.

Commenting on the research Professor Thomas Hills, study co-author from Warwick's Department of Psychology, said: "The study's key insight is that those animals capable of simulating their future actions must be able to distinguish between their imagined actions and those that are actually experienced."

The researchers were inspired by work conducted in the 1950s on maze navigation in rats. It was observed that rats, at points in the maze that required them to make decisions on what they would do next, often stopped and appeared to deliberate over their future actions.

Recent neuroscience research found that at these 'choice points' rats and other vertebrates activate regions of their hippocampus that appear to simulate choices and their potential outcomes.

Professor Hills and Professor Stephen Butterfill, from Warwick's Department of Philosophy, created different descriptive models to explain the process behind the rat's deliberation at the 'choice points'.

One model, the Naive Model, assumed that animals inhibit action during simulation. However, this model created false memories because the animal would be unable to tell the differences between real and imagined actions.

A second, the Self-actuating Model, was able to solve this problem by 'tagging' real versus imagined experience. Hills and Butterfill called this tagging the 'primal self'.

Commenting on the finding the Professor Hills, said: "The study answers a very old question: do animals have a sense of self? Our first aim was to understand the recent neural evidence that animals can project themselves into the future. What we wound up understanding is that, in order to do so, they must have a primal sense of self."

"As such, humans must not be the only animal capable of self-awareness. Indeed, the answer we are led to is that anything, even robots, that can adaptively imagine themselves doing what they have not yet done, must be able to separate the knower from the known."

The study, From foraging to autonoetic consciousness: The primal self as a consequence of embodied prospective foraging, is published by Current Zoology.

INFORMATION:



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Mount Sinai scientists develop new technique for analyzing the epigenetics of bacteria

2015-06-15
Scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a new technique to more precisely analyze bacterial populations, to reveal epigenetic mechanisms that can drive virulence. The new methods hold the promise of a potent new tool to offset the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance by bacterial pathogens. The research was published today in the journal Nature Communications, and conducted in collaboration with New York University Langone Medical Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital of Harvard Medical School. The information content of the ...

How the Epstein-Barr virus hides in human cells

2015-06-15
Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München have now discovered how Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) conceals itself in human cells. A main culprit for its bad visibility by the immune system is the viral protein LMP2A. As published in the scientific journal PLOS Pathogens, the protein helps EBV-infected cells hide from T cells. This camouflage through the LMP2A protein may play a major role in the causation of cancer by EBV. „We suspected that a viral protein was behind EBV's camouflage in cancerous cells", says Dr. Andreas Moosmann from the Research Unit Gene Vectors ...

Majority of adults favor ban on powdered alcohol

Majority of adults favor ban on powdered alcohol
2015-06-15
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- After this year's legalization of powdered alcohol, some states have already banned it -- a move that the majority of the public supports, according to a new University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Adults across the country share the same top concern about the new alcohol-on-the-go product: potential misuse among underage youth. Packaged in travel-friendly pouches, powdered alcohol will be available in flavors of distilled spirits like vodka and rum and also mixed drinks. One packet of powdered alcohol ...

Uterine transplantation: Subjects have 'adjusted well to their new life situation'

2015-06-15
Lisbon, 15 June 2015: In October last year the Gothenburg, Sweden, group of Mats Bra?nnstro?m announced the world's first live birth following the transplantation of a donated uterus.(1) In an editorial accompanying the report, The Lancet listed this remarkable achievement as comparable to only three other landmarks in the history of reproductive medicine: "the arrival of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) in the late 1970s; the development of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in the early 1990s; the first ovarian transplant a decade ago; and [now] the first live birth ...

Assisted reproduction not associated with reduced academic performance in adolescence

2015-06-15
Lisbon, 15 June 2015: The academic performance of children conceived by assisted reproduction techniques (ART) is no better or worse than that of spontaneously conceived children when assessed at the ninth grade of their school education.(1) Similarly, ART singletons and ART twins also had comparable test scores, suggesting, say the investigators, that "the higher obstetric risk" identified in ART pregnancies - and particularly in twins - "is not associated with poorer academic performance in adolescence".(2) "These findings are very important for infertile patients," ...

Poor sleep associated with increased risk of heart attack and stroke

2015-06-15
EuroHeartCare is the official annual meeting of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The 2015 meeting is held 14 to 15 June in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in collaboration with the Croatian Association of Cardiology Nurses. Professor Gafarov said: "Mortality from cardiovascular diseases accounts for nearly 50% of the total mortality among the population. Nearly 80% of deaths from cardiovascular disease are due to myocardial infarction (heart attack) and stroke. It means that today we are talking about ...

Visualizing calcified coronary arteries may be wake-up call to change lifestyle

2015-06-15
"It is my coronary artery and my coronary artery calcification and I am facing a real risk and challenge," said one patient. EuroHeartCare is the official annual meeting of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The 2015 meeting is held 14 to 15 June in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in collaboration with the Croatian Association of Cardiology Nurses. Ms Mols said: "Patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease and hyperlipidaemia (high blood lipids) urgently need to improve their lifestyles and ...

American Thoracic Society issues recommendations on healthy sleep

2015-06-15
The American Thoracic Society has released a policy statement with recommendations for clinicians and the general public on achieving good quality sleep and getting an adequate quantity of sleep. "Sleep plays a vital role in human health, yet there is a lack of sufficient guidance on promoting good sleep health," said Sutapa Mukherjee, MBBS, PhD, chair of the committee that produced the statement. "In this statement, with an eye towards improving public health, we address the importance of good quality sleep with a focus on sleep health in adults and children; the effects ...

New calculations to improve CO2 monitoring from space

2015-06-15
How light of different colours is absorbed by carbon dioxide (CO2) can now be accurately predicted using new calculations developed by a UCL-led team of scientists. This will help climate scientists studying Earth's greenhouse gas emissions to better interpret data collected from satellites and ground stations measuring CO2. By improving the understanding of how much radiation CO2 absorbs, uncertainties in modelling climate change will be reduced and more accurate predictions can be made about how much Earth is likely to warm over the next few decades. Previous methods ...

Blood antibodies may predict HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer survival

2015-06-15
Background: According to Sturgis, the incidence of HPV-positive oropharyngeal carcinoma has increased dramatically in recent years. Although patients with HPV-positive disease have a better prognosis than those with HPV-negative disease, researchers are still seeking a better understanding of what group of patients is more likely to respond to treatment. How the Study Was Conducted: Sturgis and colleagues used blood samples from 209 patients with previously untreated oropharyngeal carcinoma, including 96 who had confirmed HPV-positive disease, and screened the samples ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Symptoms of long-COVID can last up to two years after infection with COVID-19

Violence is forcing women in Northern Ireland into homelessness, finds new report

Latin American intensivists denounce economic and cultural inequities in the global scientific publishing system

Older adults might be more resistant to bird flu infections than children, Penn research finds

Dramatic increase in research funding needed to counter productivity slowdown in farming

How chemistry and force etch mysterious spiral patterns on solid surfaces

Unraveling the mysteries of polycystic kidney disease

Mother’s high-fat diet can cause liver stress in fetus, study shows

Weighing in on a Mars water debate

Researchers ‘seq’ and find a way to make pig retinal cells to advance eye treatments

Re-purposed FDA-approved drug could help treat high-grade glioma

Understanding gamma rays in our universe through StarBurst

Study highlights noninvasive hearing aid 

NASA taps UTA to shape future of autonomous aviation

Mutations disrupt touch-based learning, study finds

Misha lived in zoos, but the elephant’s tooth enamel helps reconstruct wildlife migrations

Eat better, breathe easier? Research points to link between diet, lung cancer

Mesozoic mammals had uniform dark fur

Wartime destruction of Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine has long-term environmental consequences

NIH’s flat 15% funding policy is misguided and damaging

AI reveals new insights into the flow of Antarctic ice

Scientists solve decades-long Parkinson’s mystery

Spinning, twisted light could power next-generation electronics

A planetary boundary for geological resources: Limits of regional water availability

Astronomy’s dirty window to space

New study reveals young, active patients who have total knee replacements are unlikely to need revision surgery in their lifetime

Thinking outside the box: Uncovering a novel approach to brainwave monitoring

Combination immunotherapy before surgery may increase survival in people with head and neck cancer

MIT engineers turn skin cells directly into neurons for cell therapy

High sugar-sweetened beverage intake and oral cavity cancer in smoking and nonsmoking women

[Press-News.org] Self-awareness not unique to mankind