-
Asked by alexgabriel26 to Hayley, Sophie on 22 Mar 2013.
-
Hayley Evers-King answered on 22 Mar 2013:
It’s very difficult to tell, because we can’t communicate with animals very easily. It definitely seems that they have lots of higher brain functions though, which could be thought of as very similar to us. Lots of animals seems to crave each others company and the way they take care of their young looks very much like a human mother would look after her babies. But its difficult to know if these are just instincts the animals have or whether they understand concepts like love or anger.
Understanding how animals think is a really interesting area of research – this is one of my favourite examples of a lady who tried to understand how much her parrot understood her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yGOgs_UlEc
-
-
Sophie Holles answered on 22 Mar 2013:
No. They don’t have feelings like us. Because their bodies and brains are very different. But that’s not to say they don’t have feelings. They probably do have feelings because they have some of the same hormone that we have like oxcytocin (the hormone you release when you feel love, when you hug someone, feel really close to them, or even stroke a dog! when you stroke a dog they release this hormone too!). Animals do share many brain processes with us as Hayley says though feelings can be a faster way for you to protect yourself.. you move away because you feel afraid, before you have calculated the speed of the approaching risk or what it is. Most feelings have an adaptive reason behind them without you having to calculate why in your brain. I think animals are more likely to have just the feeling without working out the reasons behind it than we are.
Comments