A clash of Umwelts: Anthropomorphism in behavioral neuroscience

• Published in: The Behavioral and brain sciences Vol. 42; p. e229
• Main Author: Gomez-Marin, Alex
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 28.11.2019
• Subjects: Animal behavior; Animals; Biology; Brain; Computational neuroscience; Laboratory animals; Metaphor; Nervous system; Neural coding; Neurosciences; Objectivity; Open Peer Commentary; Physics

Brains enjoy a bodily life. Therefore animals are subjects with a point of view. Yet, coding betrays an anthropomorphic bias: we can, therefore they must. Here I propose a reformulation of Brette's question that emphasizes organismic perception, cautioning for misinterpretations based on extern...