Dimensions of Animal Consciousness.

A multidimensional framework is proposed for understanding how consciousness varies across animal species. Rather than ranking species on a single scale of consciousness, the framework identifies five key dimensions: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-consciousness. For each dimension, existing experiments are reviewed and future experiments suggested. By assessing a species against each dimension, a distinctive consciousness profile can be constructed, indicating that no species is simply more or less conscious than another.

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Abstract

How does consciousness vary across the animal kingdom? Are some animals 'more conscious' than others? This article presents a multidimensional framework for understanding interspecies variation in states of consciousness. The framework distinguishes five key dimensions of variation: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-consciousness. For each dimension, existing experiments that bear on it are reviewed and future experiments are suggested. By assessing a given species against each dimension, we can construct a consciousness profile for that species. On this framework, there is no single scale along which species can be ranked as more or less conscious. Rather, each species has its own distinctive consciousness profile.