PH 350 - Animal Minds (CSC 350)

4.00 credits.

There is a growing consensus that many non-human animals are conscious and much more intelligent than previously believed. Throughout this interdisciplinary course, we will try to answer the question what, if anything, makes humans unique with regard to cognitive abilities and conscious experience? We will explore similarities and differences between humans and other animals for a variety of cognitive abilities such as perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, tool use, and language using primary scientific evidence and an evolutionary framework. We will explore particular debates in current animal cognition research.