#  Animal Cognition, Consciousness, and Ethics 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **October 26, 2015** 

 06:30PM - 06:30PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Emerson Hall Room 105**  



 

 



 

Harvard College Effective Altruism (associated with the Department of Psychology) will host a lecture by Dr. Irene Pepperberg on “Animal Cognition, Consciousness, and Ethics” on Monday, October 26 at 6:30 p.m. in Emerson Hall Room 105. All are welcome.  
  
Dr. Irene Pepperberg is a researcher at Harvard University in the field of animal cognition, specifically of African Grey parrots. Her work began with Alex, a parrot who was shown to have the emotional age of about a 2 year old child and the intelligence of up to a 5-6 year old child. Her research in areas such as the labelling of objects, shapes, colors, and the understanding of categorical concepts, of bigger-or-smaller, same-different, and nonhuman numerical abilities, revolutionized what the world knew about avian cognition.   
  
Arguments for human consciousness usually derive from introspective reports; we lack such reports for nonhumans. Not being able to derive data to posit human-like consciousness, Dr. Pepperberg argues that nonhumans have, at the least, a sense of awareness, which may or may not be distinct from full consciousness. She proposes that this awareness if required for complex tasks and is a form of higher order cognition.



 

 



 

 

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