Do plants pay attention? A possible phenomenological-empirical approach

• Published in: Progress in biophysics and molecular biology Vol. 173; pp. 11 - 23
• Main Authors: Parise, André Geremia, de Toledo, Gabriel Ricardo Aguilera, Oliveira, Thiago Francisco de Carvalho, Souza, Gustavo Maia, Castiello, Umberto, Gagliano, Monica, Marder, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2022
• Subjects: Cognitive psychology; Complex systems; Consciousness; Electrome; Phenomenology; Plant cognition; Phenomenology; Electrome; Consciousness; Complex systems; Cognitive psychology; Plant cognition
• ISSN: 0079-6107; 1873-1732; 1873-1732
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2022.05.008

Attention is the important ability of flexibly controlling limited cognitive resources. It ensures that organisms engage with the activities and stimuli that are relevant to their survival. Despite the cognitive capabilities of plants and their complex behavioural repertoire, the study of attention in plants has been largely neglected. In this article, we advance the hypothesis that plants are endowed with the ability of attaining attentive states. We depart from a transdisciplinary basis of philosophy, psychology, physics and plant ecophysiology to propose a framework that seeks to explain how plant attention might operate and how it could be studied empirically. In particular, the phenomenological approach seems particularly important to explain plant attention theoretically, and plant electrophysiology seems particularly suited to study it empirically. We propose the use of electrophysiological techniques as a viable way for studying it, and we revisit previous work to support our hypothesis. We conclude this essay with some remarks on future directions for the study of plant attention and its implications to botany. •Plants could present attention to certain actions and environmental cues.•Plant attention would allow the processing of information when cognitive capabilities are limited.•Plant attention is proposed to happen through synchronisation of the electrical signalling of plant modules.•Methods to observe plant attention empirically through electrophysiological analyses are proposed.