2025-11-15
Do birds feel and experience the world like us? Gianmarco Maldarelli and Onur Güntürkün draw together recent behavioral and neurobiological findings and show that birds display sensory awareness, signs of self-recognition, and even possess neural architectures that resemble those thought to support consciousness in humans. Even though avian brains are organized differently from those of mammals, birds appear to have evolved their own pathways for integrating information and possibly constructing subjective experiences. Thus, consciousness may not be a human monopoly, but a widespread, possibly ancient biological capacity shared across very different species. And birds are emerging as key players in understanding how consciousness evolved.
Do birds feel and experience the world like us? Gianmarco Maldarelli and Onur Güntürkün draw together recent behavioral and neurobiological findings and show that birds display sensory awareness, signs of self-recognition, and even possess neural architectures that resemble those thought to support consciousness in humans. Even though avian brains are organized differently from those of mammals, birds appear to have evolved their own pathways for integrating information and possibly constructing subjective experiences. Thus, consciousness may not be a human monopoly, but a widespread, possibly ancient biological capacity shared across very different species. And birds are emerging as key players in understanding how consciousness evolved.
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Last update: Nov 15, 2025
