Citation
Harris, Lasana T. (2017) Do we understand what it means for dogs to experience emotion?. Animal Sentience 14(8)
Commentary Type
Invited Commentary
Thread
Miiamaaria V. Kujala, Canine emotions as seen through human social cognition
Abstract
Psychologists who study humans struggle to agree on a definition of emotion, falling primarily into two camps. Though recent neuroscience advances are beginning to settle this ancient debate, it cannot solve the private-language problem at the heart of inferences about social cognition. This suggests that when we consider the emotional experiences of other species like canines, biological and physiological homologs do not provide enough evidence of emotional experiences similar to those of humans. Secondary complex emotional experiences are even more difficult to attribute to non-humans since such experiences rely, by definition, on social cognition. Given the contextual differences between human-human and canine-human interactions, the communicative function of emotions may also differ in canines.
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1254
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Neuroscience Commons, Evolution Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, Social Psychology Commons