Animal behavior, mostly controlled by the central brain, has been studied in natural environments and laboratory settings. In early 20th century, researchers behavior to reveal how it is built from components organized over time response stimuli. settings, study ability of brain generate behaviors rewards punishments. However, there are limitations quantifying animal these two approaches. Recen...

Of the various disciplines within the animal sciences, the issue of animal welfare has been most closely associated with ethology, the study of animal behavior. Prior to the modern welfare movement, applied ethology was primarily involved in studies on feeding and reproductive behavior. The emphasis on freedom of movement and mental experiences in animal welfare resulted in the field of applied...

Interdisciplinary research provides inspirations and insights into how a variety of disciplines can contribute to the formulation of an alternative path to artificial cognition systems. The chapter suggests that results from ethology, evolutionary theory and epistemology can be condensed into four boundary conditions. They lead to the outline of an architecture for genuine cognitive systems, wh...

What does it mean to be “human”? The question, though it has occupied some of the greatest Western minds of philosophy, science, history, and political theory, could not have been answered with any plausibility until recently, for we have only begin to acquire the scientific knowledge necessary to provide an informed response. At the same time, recent scientific and technological developments h...

1. A century of evolutionary psychology The evolution of mind and behavior was of intense interest to Charles Darwin throughout his life. His views were made public a decade before his death in The Descent of Man (e.g. 1981 [1871]) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1965 [1872]). Evolutionary psychology has been an active field of research and a topic of public controversy f...

An important habit of ciliates, namely, their behavioral preference for walls, is revealed through experiments and hydrodynamic simulations. A simple mechanical response of individual ciliary beating (i.e., the beating is stalled by the cilium contacting a wall) can solely determine the sliding motion of the ciliate along the wall and result in a wall-preferring behavior. Considering ciliate et...