Rats Feel Each Other's Pain

sciencehabit writes "Empathy lets us feel another person's pain and drives us to help ease it. But is empathy a uniquely human trait? For decades researchers have debated whether nonhuman animals possess this attribute. Now a new study shows that rats will free a trapped cagemate in distress. The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people."

Comments

Misleading Headline

[mr1911]

I thought this was going to be an article about the current election cycle.

Re:Misleading Headline

[couchslug]

Politicians don't have empathy, they simulate it.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Tsingi]

I thought this was going to be an article about the current election cycle.

You must have focused on the word 'rodent', and missed the terms 'empathy' and 'human'.

It's an easy mistake, anyone could have made it.

Re:Misleading Headline

[forkfail]

They all too often do have a feral pack protection instinct, though.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't decide whether to mod this funny or insightful.

Re:Misleading Headline

[need4mospd]

I feel your pain bro.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians don't have empathy, they simulate it.

That's actually close to a definition of a psychopath.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story, bro.

Re:Misleading Headline

[omfgnosis]

So are you saying that it's inaccurate because it isn't exactly the definition of a psychopath? We can work on it.

Re:Misleading Headline

[gmanterry]

It's more insightful, unfortunately, than funny. But it is funny.

Re:Misleading Headline

[Greyfox]

I'd feel a lot better about experimenting on politicians than I would about experimenting on rats, especially in light of this story. I'm pretty sure a politician would not share his chocolate chips.

Re:Misleading Headline

[treeves]

You know what a toymaker has, bro?

Re:Misleading Headline

[treeves]

Seeing how he or she commented as AC, possibly not logged in, it is entirely possible that he/she could still log in and moderate.
I know I have logged out just so I could comment as AC after having moderated.

Re:Misleading Headline

[mhelander]

Assuming politicians are humans, and you assume they are only simulating empathy....did you just simulate empathy for a politician, and does that make you a politician?

Re:Happy Holidays from the Golden Girls!

[Tsingi]

I give, filtering AC's out.

"Empathy Tests"

[danbuter]

Hopefully, by empathy tests, they don't mean torture one rat and see how the others react.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's something only PETA would do.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Trepidity]

There've been some milder studies vaguely like that in monkeys. In one such study, a monkey is given a cord that, if pulled, gives it some food. In the control group, that's all; in the experimental group, pulling the cord also shocks another monkey. They are much less willing to pull the "also shocks someone else" cord. That can be interpreted as a form of empathetic altruism, foregoing a reward to avoid harming someone else. A counter-argument is that it's not altruism so much as monkeys finding expressions of distress unpleasant, meaning they avoid pulling a cord that results in unpleasant sounds: a selfish behavior, because the real goal is to avoid hearing sounds they don't like. On the third hand, that counter-argument is hard to actually separate from "real" empathy, because one potential mechanism for (some kinds of) empathy is that we find it unpleasant to hear expressions of distress from others who are similar enough to us.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Joce640k]

Does anybody seriously still believe that animals are just dumb, mindless beasts? I thought that way of thinking died out two centuries ago.

Instead of doing this experiment they could just ask somebody who's ever owned a pet. Or watch a few David Attenborough wildlife documentaries.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[codeAlDente]

Unfortunately yes. It's only been about half a century since there was active social debate in the US about whether people from other races were just dumb, mindless beasts.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Sockatume]

The reason we know that animals are not just dumb, mindless beasts is because people have done research like this and confirmed experimentally that the presence of such emotions and other higher cognative abilities is real, and not just an anthropomorphising intepretation on the part of the observer. It's taught us a lot about where and how different behaviors arise, and led to all sorts of interesting questions. It's understood that not all animals have a "theory of mind", which is necessary to understand other creatures as having an equivalent perspective to their own. In what way does that influence their internal mental life? Are they natural solipsists? What would've happened if our branch of the evolutionary tree had never gained that ability?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Dan East]

Regarding your third hand, it implies that human empathy is only an instantaneous response to something occurring at that moment (I find this stimulus to be bothering, thus I will help this other person to make the stimulus go away). To me empathy is nagging unease or sadness because I know (or can vaguely imagine) what someone else is going through, even if I don't have a direct interaction with that person at all (IE merely being told "This happened to so and so the other day"). So in that context empathy has absolutely nothing to do with selfishness, because the selfish thing to do in that case (being already removed from the person in distress) is to ignore them entirely. In fact, empathy can be downright debilitating, especially when there's nothing that can be done for the person in need.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[RivenAleem]

I'm quite interested in the outcome of this test, at what point did the 'scientists' decide what they were doing was cruel to the animals and stop? How long did it take before any of the 'scientists' began to show some form of empathy for the monkeys?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[martas]

I think there's a glaring hole in your argument -- you're assuming that the only stimuli that can be unpleasant in this sense are immediate auditory/visual ones of someone else suffering. If you expand that to include the knowledge that suffering is taking place as a sort of stimulus, then your argument seems to no longer hold.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

PETA are the rats.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Speare]

If you'd read the articles instead of just shoot from the hip, you'd know.

Yes, they torture one rat, if you define "trap the rat in a small clear tube long enough that they might pee from the mental stresses of discovering they're trapped" as torture.

You can't study empathy without pain or anguish being involved, by definition. You might be able to study this concept by watching it in nature, but the conditions won't be controlled so conclusions will be weak.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many people who don't think rat can feel emotion or pain.

If it means hurting *one* or even 10 rats, so that people's attitudes can change, and thus prevent thousands or even millions of rats from going through tests on future occasions, that can only be a good thing.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

we find it unpleasant to hear expressions of distress from others who are similar enough to us.

Take a hard look around. Most young people these days relish in other's pain. The more painful the more they want to see it and the more enjoyment they find. Watch America's Funniest Videos (which isn't so funny) sometime with others. The more people are harmed and/or injured the more gleefully excited many people become. As for my own observations, its seems to be especially prevalent with the entitled generation (25).

Personally I have a hard time looking at this people without utter disgust.

In the above study, I have no doubt many of the entitled generation would go out of their way to pull it, and robustly laugh as they ate their snack.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[avandesande]

It's pretty silly to believe that humans developed all these complex behaviors in one evolutionary step from the animals preceding them.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[rainmouse]

A counter-argument is that it's not altruism so much as monkeys finding expressions of distress unpleasant, meaning they avoid pulling a cord that results in unpleasant sounds: a selfish behavior, because the real goal is to avoid hearing sounds they don't like.

There are many forms of altruism in animals such as bats regurgitating blood for hungry cave mates or birds that give a warning cry of predators that reveals the location of the caller to said predators. However altruism is an arguable word in its definition, as typically these gestures of altruism come with increased interest from the opposite sex, a gesture of superiority so to speak which arguably is exactly the same in humans. It could also be said that true altruism does not exist, in humans or animals.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember humane rat traps decades ago included, in their instructions, mention that one rat will free another from the trap.

This information is not new.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[pburghdoom]

I think there is a world of difference between watching stupidity that results in harm versus physically causing it to another. I can watch (from a desensitizing distance of my own living room) some dumb ass hurt themselves and find amusement in it, but that same thing in real life not the same.

Also have you ever watched early televised slap stick comedy? I mean think of the Three Stooges, that at times was just brutal but thought the height of comedy. Take it further back to things like Punch and Judy shows, maybe puppets but that could get pretty violent as well. I think you are just looking through biased eyes.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Oligonicella]

1960? Please cite. A stray moron does not constitute an "active social debate". IoW: that's bullshit.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[jdgeorge]

You've got this backwards. The point is that humans are basically just like other mammals, with very slight differences that are due to having relatively enormous brains.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[HeckRuler]

About the time their grant money ran out.

But let me go one further. You obviously feel aghast at the thought of creating a system which inflicts pain in a monkey. Now, this isn't dismemberment, brain damage, or anything that will cause long term damage. (Does it even cause short term damage?). These are researchers trying to learn about psychology, sociology, biology, and how to make things better. You know, "Progress". That mystical magical thing that leads to things which let you live a little longer. Speaking of living longer, what options do these monkeys have really? They could be out in the wilds of Africa, where they'd lead a life that was nasty, brutish, and short. Of course it's a little late for that now, since it's a lifestyle you kinda have to be born into. They could be placed in a zoo, where they get stared at, and slowly go crazy. They could be a pet, for all the crazy people who have exotic pet licenses. Oh, but that requires some training, which involves quite a bit of smacking, so that won't do. Or they could contribute to society in a more meaningful way by being part of a study.

So while I understand that your bleeding heart goes out to these poor monkeys, it's not that bad, and stop getting in the way of science.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

"about" half a century

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[RivenAleem]

My heart is not bleeding for these animals, I understand the use of animals for say, medical testing. There is a clearly defined purpose for them, and when they are tested in this manner, it is often in the most "humane" way possible. I fail to see (either I'm just dumb, or they need to explain it better) the applications of knowing that rats feel empathy for other rats in distress. If they can't back up their reasons for doing this test, the practical applications (what lives will be saved) of deliberately inflicting pain/discomfort on these animals, then I'm inclined to consider them cruel.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Those rats don't have empathy, so I think this experiment must have used different ones.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

But it would have been odd if studies had shown we were all that different from animals like monkeys and rats (not to mention apes), since we share so much in common biologically, and we can observe plenty of similar behaviors which suggest similar feelings and experiences.

It's only the religious background which held that humans were somehow special, endowed with souls and being in the image of God, which resulted in the default skeptical view. We should have started out with a view that animals are more like us than different and then used the studies to determine what those differences were, rather than the other way around.

It wasn't sound science. It was rather the cultural, religious background that modern science emerged from. And the human tendency to think we are somehow special.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Dan East]

I'm suggesting that empathy is higher order than condition / response, and if you include something as high level as knowledge into that definition, I'm fine with that. To me, empathy is the knowledge that someone is suffering, which is to consider, imagine, or reflect on your own past experiences to glean some understanding of what someone else is enduring. That is quite different than a response to an annoying or disturbing stimuli.

I also suggest that at least to a significant extent, empathy is a choice. In order for it to be a choice it is not a condition / response. I see a cultural pattern where people are taught (likely in an indirect way, or due to some sort of caste system) to not show (or perhaps even not feel) empathy for others. A good example of this is the horrible story of Yue Yue, a 2 year old Chinese girl that was recently run over by two vehicles and literally stepped over and around by over a dozen people for several minutes before someone helped. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLde8f2zb1U (VERY disturbing video - watch at your own risk)

I've seen a strong pattern of this in other videos of trauma, car accidents, etc which leads me to believe the empathy is certainly something controllable, and likely affected by culture and society.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[codeAlDente]

1960 preceded the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In much of the south, blacks were considered the equivalent of beasts. The Catholic Church still abducted native Americans from their families and put them in Catholic schools, reasoning that their tribal culture did not meet the standards of rational thought. For a more academic viewpoint, check out the 1971 book The Pre-Columbian Mind, where a MD/historian Francisco Guerra weighs historical evidence to promote the viewpoint that people living in indigenous societies were indeed capable of rational thought. Or, maybe have a look into the Eugenics movement. http://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Weak-Eugenics-Americas/dp/0914153056/ref=sr_1_1 It's unwise to assume that the vast majority holds your intelligent, enlightened opinions.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Two problems .

1) While what you say is probably correct (and you are probably a nice guy), your views on empathy do not necessarily hold for the rest of humans. So your definition of "human empathy" is not perfect.

2) Human beings is ,in a manner, response to things they see. For example, people do not respond to requests for donations in faraway places, but will help locally. Similarly, people donate when they can actually see the "pathetic situation" others are in. For example, look at all the requests for Cleft Lip surgery donations -they all have pictures of kids with a cleft lip. If they did not have those pictures, no one would donate (http://www.smiletrain.org/) . It is the same with donations for those hungry in Africa -- the pictures have to convey the situation to elicit empathy and donations.

3) People only give when asked. You are unlikely to go around hunting for the poorest man and help him, but if someone on the street asks you, you might donate. It seems to indicate that giving is related to "I find this stimulus to be bothering, thus I will help this other person to make the stimulus go away"

So indeed, you can never say that empathy in humans is completely different from just "give something so that bad feeling goes away".

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[MichaelKristopeit426]

In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, "Give me legal protection from my opponent." For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, "Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out." Lk. 18:2-5

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[0xdeadbeef]

In fact, empathy can be downright debilitating, especially when there's nothing that can be done for the person in need.

It would not be debilitating if you did not have the selfish and involuntary impulse to do the impossible, to fix the situation causing you stress.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[itsenrique]

Evidence that supports the idea that animals may be able to experience empathy will result in us treating animals more ethically, or at least I'd wager some scientists involved feel that way. I doubt they get some sick pleasure from it, I do understand your concern though.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[bcrowell]

Yeah, what you're describing is an example of how hard it is to infer animals' mental states based on their behavior. Just because an animal's behavior X is analogous to the behavior Y that we do when we have mental state Z, that doesn't mean that the animal's mental state is at all analogous to Z. Chimps do all kinds of behaviors, including social behaviors and even deception, that would make you think that they must have a theory of mind, but Povinelli did some classic studies where he showed that chimps would beg for food from people who couldn't see them, suggesting that the chimps simply learn by rote that begging produces food. Same thing for tool use. Chimps use tools, and even invent new uses for tools (as opposed to, say, sea otters, which use rocks as tools but don't innovate), but they use a lot more trial and error than a human would -- even a 1.5-year-old human child, who in many ways is not as smart as an adult chimp. E.g., there's a famous experiment where chimps learned to stack boxes to get at a banana on the ceiling, but those chimps tried all kinds of things that no human would ever try, like pushing a box against a wall, high up, and expecting it to stay there without anything underneath to support it.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Jeremi]

Why do you keep putting quotes around the word scientists?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Jeremi]

I mean think of the Three Stooges, that at times was just brutal but thought the height of comedy.

The height of comedy? By who? 6-year-old boys?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still an going debate about Us'ians in the rest of the world.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[RivenAleem]

Because I wouldn't like to be considered in the same profession as them. Like I said in another post, I don't mind if there is a clearly defined purpose, ie prolonging human life (hell we do that all the time by rearing, butchering and cooking animals), but if they can't explain to me the purpose of the experiment then they are not scientists.

Where's the benefit? Are we talking about a cure for aspergers or similar genetic diseases? How do you get from diagnosing empathy in rats to curing human ailments?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, I remember all of those lions, tigers, and bears that had paying jobs and owned property...wait...

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[The Askylist]

My partner used to keep rats as pets. Despite not being keen on having the little critters sitting on my shoulder, they were interesting to observe when in their (large and well provisioned) cage.

At one time, when we had three males, and the eldest was ill and lethargic, the younger rats would fetch him food and huddle up to him to keep him warm. I never though of it as empathy, though - I assumed that it was a sort of hierarchical respect shown by juveniles to an elder.

They are amusing little creatures, and do show distinct personality traits, so I suppose empathy is not entirely unlikely.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Krishnoid]

I see a cultural pattern where people are taught (likely in an indirect way, or due to some sort of caste system) to not show (or perhaps even not feel) empathy for others. A good example of this is the horrible story of Yue Yue, a 2 year old Chinese girl that was recently run over by two vehicles and literally stepped over and around by over a dozen people for several minutes before someone helped.

Or, if you like, something closer to home.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

That mystical magical thing that leads to things which let you live a little longer

Since when was progress solely about living a little longer? At what point do we decide that we are no longer going to continue racking up massive amounts of debt in the selfish pursuit of banking a couple of more years in the care home?

Progress should ensure that future generations get to live lives that are, in many ways, better than the lives we have lived. As it stands now future generations will get the wonderful opportunity to pay for the lives now being lived on credit.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[X0563511]

Keep in mind that the 'distress' these rats face is merely the fact that it is in a small compartment ("tube"). It's hardly being tortured.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like Leona Helmsley's dog.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[X0563511]

So, you are saying that the pursuit of understanding isn't valid? That's quite short-sighted. You can't get from A to C without first obtaining C, and there might be a D that you can't see until you get to C.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unless you feel like dissecting a bunch of autistic children, having an animal model of the detection of emotions in conspecifics would be pretty useful, wouldn't it?

And you aren't going to get one of those without demonstrating that some suitable model animal can, indeed, detect and react to emotional cues in some usefully measurable way, so that you can start poking at the mechanisms responsible...

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[X0563511]

Er... that should read "from A to C without first obtaining B"

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[0xdeadbeef]

In order for it to be a choice it is not a condition / response.

That's just fucking stupid. You contradict yourself. Why must it be "controllable" (your word choice) if it were not involuntary response?

And if empathy derives from experience, as you say, why would you expect people to help a child hit by a car? Not many people are hit by cars.

Or, as that disturbs you, why does the fact that millions of children are suffering from hunger right this instant not cause the same visceral reaction? After all, you claim it is about understanding, not stimulus.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Personally I have a hard time looking at this people without utter disgust.

I'll take it that you aren't really the empathic type, eh?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[X0563511]

I think you are putting the chicken before the egg.

Religion didn't just spontaneously appear - it's our capacity to even conceptualize it that marks us out.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[TheRaven64]

It's only been about half a century since there was active social debate in the US about whether people from other races were just dumb, mindless beasts

And after more careful thought, the native american population decided that yes, on the balance of evidence, they were?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Never mind the boring stuff, you can get good old-fashioned blood sports right up to the present day. Bear baiting has seen hard times since Shakespear's day; but cockfights, dogfights, and bullfights are still on the menu, sometimes even legally, in a fair number of jurisdictions...

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[TheRaven64]

Actually, human brains are quite a bit smaller than a lot of animals. Bottlenose dolphins have larger brains than humans. Whales and elephants have much larger brains (elephant brains are about five times the size of human brains). As a percentage of their body mass, mice have larger brains than humans (3.2% of body mass, as opposed to 2.1% for a human).

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[theshowmecanuck]

Elephants will do that to. But they had a hard time getting them in the little cages, never mind what they do to those little tiny mazes.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many forms of altruism in animals such as bats regurgitating blood for hungry cave mates or birds that give a warning cry of predators that reveals the location of the caller to said predators. However altruism is an arguable word in its definition...

Also because there may be a genetic component tied to helping your species survive. If there's a genetic factor in bats or birds helping like kind survive, in theory, more of them should live long enough to reproduce.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[mfnickster]

Hopefully, by empathy tests, they don't mean torture one rat and see how the others react.

Nah, it's easier these days. We can check for capillary dilation of the so-called 'blush response' and fluctuations of the pupil. We call it Voight-Kampf for short.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, this isn't dismemberment, brain damage, or anything that will cause long term damage.

Minimizing, are you? Let's not try to fool ourselves (or your audience), there's plenty of real pain and suffering for lab animals. (Look at the cute rat! And he's blue! Oh. And he's waiting to have his spine crushed. Huh.)

These are researchers trying to learn ... how to make things better ... leads to things which let you live a little longer.

When you put it that way, it feels pretty evil. Causing suffering to extend my life? I was okay with a little suffering to help the greater good, but the way you phrase it makes me feel dirty. I'm not a soul-sucking fantasy villain.

... what options do these monkeys have really?

Well, I suppose they could have not been captured or bred. You think they're better off enjoying the luxuries of the lab than out in the wilds they evolved for? ("Really, I'd prefer the woodlands. Keep your clean cage and fresh linens.")

Or they could contribute to society in a more meaningful way by being part of a study.

The thing is, you don't seem to consider them part of our "society." Meaning, you don't see them benefiting from the experiments. Well, maybe you could quickly think up some intellectual benevolence for test subject species if you thought for a second, but thinking about all this in the abstract you lack a true emotional reaction to the suffering. Is the suffering of others okay if it benefits us? That is the worst kind of selfishness. It's the foundation of war atrocities, of torture and genocide. The Us v. Them mentality.

I'm not opposed to animal testing. I'm not opposed to a modicum of suffering to benefit the greater good. I'm opposed to "species-centric sociopathy," which is really a short step away from general sociopathy.

Look closer. See the suffering in greater detail. Expand your understanding of it. It's easier to push buttons that bomb distant people, or cast ballots that fund violence when the suffering is abstract.

Myopia is a kind of sociopathy.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[DriedClexler]

Wouldn't surprise me. There was an article on Slate about scentific research on whether being spayed/neuered affects animals' happiness.

One of the happiness measurement tests on mice is to hold it by the end of its tail and measure how long it takes to stop squirming. (The happier they are, the longer before they give up.)

Now, I don't know the net impact that neutering has on a pet's happiness ... but I'm pretty sure they don't like being held by their tails until they give up...

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked in a research lab for many years and did a lot of surgery and sac-ing (meaning sacrificing) using rats, mice and rabbits. Yeah, the remaining rats knew it was coming. It was painfully, painfully obvious. The rabbits and mice seemed more or less oblivious.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[martas]

Well, this is getting convoluted and vague, so I can't respond point by point, but consider this -- perhaps empathy is, in fact, "condition / response", but because the stimulus is being generated in regions of the brain more subject to conscious control, we can actually cut it off? Much like we (some of us) can stick out fingers in our ears to drown out the screams of a Saudi woman being lashed to death for looking in the direction of a, let's say, banana.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[HeckRuler]

Minimizing

Not for this one I'm not. There are indeed labs that do brutal things to animals, and we have to draw the line on ethical concerns somewhere. And that line is fairly proportional to how similar the test subject is to us. So we really really care about what happens to us. We have social obligations to other humans. We care about what happens to monkeys. Small furry mammals shouldn't suffer too much. Insects and fish... well... meh. And we're perfectly fine with brutally twisting and subverting the very nature of bacteria and viruses.

But for these rats, and the monkeys the parent was talking about? It really is that minimal. Get over it.

And progress is progress. Life is better, longer, more harmonically aligned with the forces that be, whatever floats your boat. It's better than the brutish nasty and short lives these animals would have out in the wild. It's exactly that sort of thing we're progressing away from.

The thing is, you don't seem to consider them part of our "society." Meaning, you don't see them benefiting from the experiments.

Uh..... Proving that animals show empathy probably goes a long way for showing how similar they are to us. Which would mean we feel worse about doing bad things to them. I'd say rats on the whole have benefited greatly from this experiment.

I'm not opposed to animal testing. I'm not opposed to a modicum of suffering to benefit the greater good. I'm opposed to "species-centric sociopathy," which is really a short step away from general sociopathy.

Good. I really don't think you'll find any of the latter in this study, the study with the monkeys, or in me. So don't get your panties in a twist.

But please, just remember that animals do not have human rights. No, we're not that different from them, but we ARE different.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[bill_mcgonigle]

Hopefully, by empathy tests, they don't mean torture one rat and see how the others react.

It's OK - they tortured the politicians and watched how the rats reacted.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I believe most *humans* fall into that category, nevermind a dog.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Greyfox]

Judging from the pile of dead monkeys, I'd say "Not at all."

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the same thing. Hell, I even saw a video of a snake attacking a gecko and another gecko nearby attacked the snake.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Reepicheep certainly didn't.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[NSash]

You're apparently using "selfish" to mean "acting in accordance with a motivation", which is not a particularly useful description (especially if you are including involuntary processes in this), and is certainly not consistent with the general use of the word.

The difference between altruism and selfishness isn't whether or not you like what you're doing, but what sorts of things you like to do.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[JohnBailey]

Ok picky..

Larger more complex brains..

Happy?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[TheRaven64]

Not really. I don't know how you measure complexity in a brain, but dolphin brains appear to be very complex, for example. A huge amount of this complexity is devoted to creating a 3d model of the surroundings by interpreting the returns from sonar, but then a large amount of the complexity of the human brain is devoted to creating a 3d model of the surroundings by interpreting the inputs from two retinas.

The thing that appears to distinguish human brains is how little of their configuration is hereditary. Humans are born with less of their brain in its final configuration than other animals. Dolphins can swim already when they're born, but humans have to learn how to walk (and learn how to swim, how to talk, and so on). The human brain is actually a good example of the UNIX worse-is-better philosophy - it's just good enough that you can program it to do different things but doesn't start out able to do any of them. This turns out to be an evolutionary advantage, because it adapts more quickly to changing conditions than a brain whose configuration is more tightly controlled by heredity.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it could be done on the hope/expectation of reciprocal altruism (that if I don't shock you, others won't shock me).

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[matfud]

This stranger danger thing is hampering. There is now too much risk involved in trying to help a child. A kid screaming and saying "this is not my dad" could mean anything. Perhaps a tantrum with her real dad or perhaps a step dad. How many times have you seen kids misbehave like that in a supermarket? Lots.

I found a lost toddler in a super market and I had second thoughts about trying to help him. I decided to. On the way to the checkout, where they could put an announcement out, I was accosted by his mum.

In that video people where looking. People were taking note. That was not happening in the case of Yue Yue.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[matfud]

I have noticed it.
How many people lying on the floor have you just walked past? If they look home less?
I fell down the stairs to the platform of a very popular train station. I knocked myself out. I know I elbowed a few people as I fell. They did not help me. I was wearing a suit, I had a brief case and a laptop bag. After I came around it was still some minutes before any of the people who were looking from a distance came forward to help me. (whoever you are mate, I am very grateful). I was bruised all over had a cut on my head which was bleeding lots and concussion.

  Even in the western world you will be ignored if helping you would interfere with someones life. Well most of the time.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[mhelander]

Count on my vote when you run for galactic president.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[mhelander]

Was not the point suggested by GP that empathy was natural but could be surpressed to different degrees and perhaps in at least some cases due to cultural influence?

Then there is no contradiction in suggesting that such surpression could be differently strong - sometimes so strong that it prevents us from running off to faraway places to help hungry and sometimes even so very strong that we wouldn't even help a baby in the road.

If empathy is natural and initially based on directly available information (direct stimuli) but eventually complemented by also being based on derived information (knowledge) but empathy could also be surpressed for any number of reasons then there is nothing strange with what Dan East stated as far as I can see?

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Sasha Dichter: The Generosity Experiment

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[uninformedLuddite]

The fact that if you were a rat others of your species would have rushed to help you sure puts things in perspective

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[matfud]

Yep. Empathy is not just a genetic thing. It requires training to override/re-enforce the urge to help someone. Why help some stranger? I do not know. It gives you a feeling of smug self satisfaction...perhaps. Or just because you can. The other person needs the help though.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[uninformedLuddite]

http://rt.com/news/yakutian-hachiko-stray-dog-429/

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[uninformedLuddite]

Even in the western world you will be ignored if helping you would interfere with someones life. Well most of the time.

This is a true story I like to tell. A man who had been addicted to Heroin for over a quarter of a century was in serious withdrawal after not having had any opiates for over fifty hours. He was driving to the part of Adelaide that an addict would go to to score. He was driving down a very busy road feeling extremely ill when he saw an elderly woman roll her rascal (I think that's what they call those 4 wheel buggy things) and crash to the ground. Although he was within a few minutes of getting his 'fix' he stopped and rendered her assistance until the ambulance arrived (she had broken her hip). He was the only person who offerred any assistance at all even until the ambulance arrived. No one cared except for the person who would be considered to be the most unlikely to assist. And no, he didn't steal her purse and it was never his intention to do so. This is a good stroy to keep in mind the next time you hear all drug addicts are trash.

Re:"Empathy Tests"

[Krishnoid]

No one cared except for the person who would be considered to be the most unlikely to assist.

Oddly enough, this story closely parallels one in 'A Scanner Darkly', about how drug users can be very kind to animals. The audiobook for it was done -- quite well, IMO -- by Paul Giamatti.

Really Misleading Headline

[dmmiller2k]

I thought this was going to be another article about investment bankers and the financial meltdown.

Just saying. John Corzine has been in the news recently.

Re:Really Misleading Headline

[forkfail]

Now you're just being insulting.

To rats, of course.

Re:Really Misleading Headline

[GameboyRMH]

Yes as we can see from TFA they are a compassionate species so we must stop using this hurtful term. The rats don't deserve it.

Not surprised

[milbournosphere]

The pet rats I've had have consistently showed intelligence, high social awareness, and genuine creativity when playing with me or their cage mates. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they would feel concern and/or empathy towards members of their social circle. These little creatures are much more complex than most people give them credit for...

Re:Not surprised

[Sockatume]

You don't need an experiment to figure it out, but you need an experiment to confirm it.

Re:Not surprised

[VortexCortex]

As a cyberneticist, I can tell you that not all humans take rats for granted...

After all: Brain cells are brain cells; Neural networks are neural networks; Intelligence is intelligence; Humans aren't really that special, even if you think they are, they won't be for long.

We've only really scratched the surface in our experimenting with Machine Intelligence interfacing with, and even enhancing Organic Intelligence, or vise versa. Not only this, but a mind machine interface creates the possibility for multi-mind beings -- One rat may have less intelligence than a human... but what about a million rat-mind collective?

This type of research is important, especially using non-human minds because through it we may find whether sympathy is an inherent trait in all life, including that of machine intelligences, hybrid organic intelligences, and even advanced alien intelligences.

I hope we do discover empathy and kindness to be universal truths. Talk about social awareness...

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. Not just towards cage mates, but to me as well. I had one in particular that seemed very empathetic when I was upset. I took them out at the same time every day and when I was having a bad day she would come over and crawl up my shirt, hop on my shoulder, and lay against my neck until free time was over. She 'loved' me in a way that most people attribute to higher mammals.

Anecdote: One particularly awful day I let them out and she did what she always does. Later in the evening, she actually escaped the cage (I had to put something over the door to keep her from getting out after that!) while I was laying on the couch. I didn't notice until she hopped onto my chest from the top of the couch. She snuggled there for quite a while before finally becoming restless and I took her back to her cage.

She lived to be over 6 years old (for rat owners, you know how short their lives are). I miss her very much. She was one of my first, and I've owned many since then. However, none have come close to her in personality!

Re:Not surprised

[Oligonicella]

This is sociology we're talking about. No scientific proofs available. Only bias confirmations.

The only evidence available from this experiment is that indeed, animals will help each other. The motivations remain unknown.

Any time you try to guess as to "why" an animal did something, it's not science.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Any time you try to guess as to "why" an animal did something, it's not science.

Humans are animals too, and we have some decent ideas as to why humans do things. Why can't we apply that to other animals? Is it that pesky soul popping up again?

interesting study, but not completely new

[Trepidity]

This study adds useful new information, but it's not the first finding of animals exhibiting what's sometimes called "directed altruism", helping another animal in response to what appears to be communication of emotional state. Even Darwin remarked that "many animals certainly sympathize with each other’s distress or
danger", though of course his evidence for that claim wasn't up to modern standards.

Here's an interesting review from 2008.

Re:interesting study, but not completely new

[Sockatume]

The new study distinguishes emotional contagion - literally feeling the pain of others, as this headline puts it - from empathy, which is defined as providing a supportive response to another's pain without exhibiting that same emotion. The former is well known in nonhuman animals, the latter not so much.

obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Mice caught in glue traps will try to work themselves free, then wail like the dickens if/when they can't. They're pretty smart critters, so they must be trying to get help (from their peers, not two-leggers).

In other news...

[GReaToaK_2000]

When the same tests were conducted with Lawyers and Politicians...

The Lawyers and Politicians left their fellow people in the cages and ate the treats in front of them.

The Rats proved to be more compassionate and empathic.

Re:In other news...

[Robert Zenz]

Good job rats! Cave Johnson...we're done here.

Unnecessarily complicated experiment

[HopefulIntern]

Could have just given the rats the Voight-Kampff test.

Re:Unnecessarily complicated experiment

[Guppy]

Could have just given the rats the Voight-Kampff test.

Yeah, they tried, but it didn't go too well.

Researcher: "You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, . You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, but you’re not helping. Why is that?
Rat: "Squeak?"

Researcher: Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
Rat: "Squeeeeeeak!" *BITE*

Re:Unnecessarily complicated experiment

[esocid]

I, for one, welcome our new rat android overlords.

Rat's ass

[Anonymous Coward]

This gives a whole new meaning to "giving a rat's ass".

Aww, so disappointing...

[rodrigoandrade]

From the title, I thought it was some research about rats literally feeling each other's pain.

Think about it, a method to make an attacker feel the victim's pain would pretty much guarantee a Nobel Peace Prize to its inventor, effectively putting an end to warfare as we know it.

Re:Aww, so disappointing...

[RivenAleem]

You mean PTSD? Aren't we desperately trying to find cures for that so we can go back to killing each other?

Re:Aww, so disappointing...

[Anonymous Coward]

PTSD is of course not immediate, and it doesn't happen to everyone. Human nature being what it is, everyone thinks they are "immune". Therefore, PTSD is not a deterrent. By the time they contract the disease, the damage (to the "enemy") has already been done.

Indeed

[AdamJS]

The RIAA is certainly sympathetic to the plight of the MPAA

Rat feelings?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great news. I'm going to start torturing every rat I find from now on.

wuzzy line

[simoncpu was here]

"There isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom -- it's a very wuzzy line -- and it's getting wuzzy-er all the time" -Jane Goodall

rats have empathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

when you place an unconscious rat in a cage with conscious rats, the first thing they do is run over and eat the unconscious rats eyes out.

i know this from first hand experience. watching it happen, while doing research as an undergrad. i was horrified. the postdoc looked over and was like "oh yeah, that's why we always separate them after giving them an injection to give them time to wake up. did i forget to tell you that part?"

rats and other rodents also never act sick. ever. even if they have a broken leg or severe infection, they'll continue acting like normal rats, for fear (i assume?) that the second they show any kind of weakness, the other rats will gang up on them and eat them.

Re:rats have empathy?

[JockTroll]

There's worse. When you place a dwarf hamster in a cage with other dwarf hamsters, they immediately perform a blood test on the newcomer. Any reaction at all, they torch it.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

As with the post at the top, it's unclear if you're talking about rats or presidential candidates.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Waffle Iron]

Maybe rats show empathy, but only if they think the other rat isn't already either dead or done for.

Then again, rats lack any form of medical treatment. So from their standpoint, maybe eating a mortally wounded or seriously ill colleague is both more humane and less wasteful than letting it slowly die.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Rhacman]

Hmm, so maybe the rat frees his cagemate to see if perhaps he is disabled and his eyes are available for eating. When he releases him perhaps he is following him around trying to guage if he is disabled in any way that might warrant a nibble. Finding the freed rat to be perfectly aware and troublesome to eat, he gives up. Subsequent attempts to free the cage mate are made on the off chance that this time he really is hurt and is ready to be eaten (can't win if you don't play). If both theories seem to fit equally well, I certainly know which one I'd lean towards presenting to the public.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Is this where we're headed?

Re:rats have empathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rats are clearly devotees of Ayn Rand.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a defense mechanism, and anyone doing work with rats should know things like this. Many rodents will eat those they think are dead, otherwise the body will start to smell and attract predators.

Re:rats have empathy?

[alvinrod]

That ascribes entirely too much emotion that may not exist.

If I had to guess the reasoning, it's because rats are prey for many other animals and having weak pack members or even weak rats around probably only encourages predators to congregate as the weak animals are a steady source of food. If the healthy rats dispose of the weak ones it might encourage predators to find easier sources for their meal. Therefore, the rats that ate other weaker rats tended to survive longer and procreate more, passing the behavior on to the next generation.

Not to say that this line of reasoning is correct, but it makes sense from an evolutionary point of view. Behaviors and traits that are harmful don't tend to stick around in the long run.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Ceriel Nosforit]

Considering the results on the current research, it brings into question what component of experiments like yours would cause humans to behave the same way when taken into an extereme; beyomd the natural conditions.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Twinbee]

As anon said further below, this could be a defence mechanism as it what they think is dead can rot and start to attract predators, affecting the rest.

So therein lies the question: Did they think that rat was dead?

And if so, how do they differ from unconscious rats versus sleeping rats?

Re:rats have empathy?

[anyanka]

Ah, but did the rats come from the same pack? Rats will viciously attack other rats they don't recognize as being from the same pack, conscious or unconscious.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Paul Dubuc]

Those rats must be pretty smart to have thought of all that. Now if they can only figure out how to avoid traps deliberately set for them after seeing their fellow rats caught in them beforehand.

Re:rats have empathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rats are actually pretty good at avoiding traps. Better than mice.

Cannibalism

[Dan East]

Rats engage in cannibalism. Perhaps rats seek out other rats in distress for this reason.

Re:Cannibalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans also engage in cannibalism. Perhaps humans seek out other humans in distress for this reason. It would really help explain those damn Thanksgiving dinners.

Link and Very mis-leading title

[Azarman]

Read this on the train this morning

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21256-rats-free-each-other-from-traps-then-share-chocolate.html

They worked out that in 76% of cases (after training) the rats would free each other from cages.

In another test they were given the choice between chocolate or freeing a mate, and in one or two cases they freed it and shared the the cholocates.

they also did another test where the caged rat could not get any chocolate (even if free), and the first rat still let them out. This is meant to show that they were not just letting the other rat out to social company/rewards.

Point being it is interesting to watch animals show behavoir traits that we have said only humans/apes can feel. Anyway read the paper, my summary wont be great i was really sleepy on the train this morning

Me

Hmmm...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This just in, rats morally superior to alarming percentage of humans...

And prawns/plants

[clickclickdrone]

Reminds me of some tests done back in the 70's when they stuck a lie detector type thing on a plant then dropped live prawns into boiling water nearby, Every time a prawn died, the plant showed a response. It was documented in Lyal Watson's Supernature book so take that as you will.

Re:And prawns/plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the time they tried a variant of that on Myhtbusters. The tests appeared to show that the polygraph machine was picking up interference from the nearby humans even though it was attached to the plant.

Known for a long time

[scapermoya]

Kin Selection

Try replacing rats wit lawyers for experimentation

[drainbramage]

1. Lab assistants become attached to the rats. This interferes with research, no such attachment forms with a lawyer.

2. Lawyers breed faster and are in much greater supply.

3. Lawyers are much cheaper to care for and humanitarian groups don't harass you no matter what you're doing to them.

4. There are some things even a rat won't do.

Re:Idiot scientists with an anti-human agenda.

[Sockatume]

How many times do we see these comments, only to look into and see that these IMBECILE commenters haven't read the article and wouldn't know good science if it bit them in the ass?

So That Makes Bill Clinton A ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rat?

Published in Rat Lab Quarterly..

[Anonymous Coward]

Studies show that humans lack the empathy trait. Subjects routinely placed researchers into painful and stressful situations. Even when shown by other researchers how to help those in need, subjects continued to let the researchers suffer.

Re:Idiot scientists with an anti-human agenda.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

How many times do we see these "studies", only too look into it and see that these IMBECILE scientists are equating correlation with causation and are anthromopormophising *constantly*, interpreting the rats actions as if they had uniquely human intentions. Also, just look at their sample size, that is way too small to actually understand what is happening in all the rats. Another worthless animal-rights-nazi inspired science article, thats all this is.

While we are riding the fallacy train, would it be worth pointing out that the phrase "interpreting rats actions as if they had uniquely human intentions." begs the question(in the original sense of the term) so damned hard that the question has filed for a restraining order and moved to a different state? By definition, only humans possess uniquely human intentions. All intentions possessed by at least one nonehuman, or not possessed by any humans, are not uniquely human. Therefore, a non human cannot have a uniquely human intention...

It is certainly possible that the study is flawed in terms of sample size or statistical power, and I would quibble that you would really need to observe rats enduring a personal cost of some kind to assist a conspecific in order to suggest that they feel empathy, rather than mere cooperation(giving somebody something you have no use for doesn't require empathy. Giving up something you want in order to alleviate somebody else's distress arguably does). However, if you are just going to declare empathy a "uniquely human intention", what's the point? Nonhumans couldn't possibly have it; but they could exhibit a behavioral structure that is game-theoretically identical to empathy in operation, which would still be an interesting result...

Re:Try replacing rats wit lawyers for experimentat

[ArsenneLupin]

Lawyers are much cheaper to care for

On which planet? Never seen a $300/hour lawyer's bill?

Re:Idiot scientists with an anti-human agenda.

[Sockatume]

Nonhumans couldn't possibly have it; but they could exhibit a behavioral structure that is game-theoretically identical to empathy in operation, which would still be an interesting result...

Behavioralism, which is the paradigm under which this study has been performed, would seem to argue that a behavior identical to an emotional response is that emotional response.

Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people.

No, it just means rats are religious. Only religion gives us empathy and morality, right?

apologies for comparing politicans to rats...

[doug141]

unfair to the rats, and they deserve better.

Re:Try replacing rats wit lawyers for experimentat

[GReaToaK_2000]

I suppose that's one way to get more grant money. (using lawyers as text animals)

N.Y.M.H.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Empathetic rats and no one mentions The Secret of NYMH?

Re:N.Y.M.H.?

[Anonymous Coward]

"And then one day, I looked opon the words on the cage door.... And understood them..."

Re:N.Y.M.H.?

[LanMan04]

National Ynstitute of Mental Health?

Re:N.Y.M.H.?

[ChrisMaple]

National Ynstitutes of Mental Health?

Motivation is a complicated emotion

[macwhizkid]

Behavioral experiments like this are relatively straightforward to plan and run. The hard part is to explain the result, and the reasons are not always what you'd expect on first glance, often due to confounding variables that you've inadvertently changed.

It's also worth noting that the news release throws in a quote about altruism, but the original paper's authors were careful not to go there.

For example, reading this carefully, it's clear that the rat frees its cagemate and then goes for the chocolate. It's not a binary choice between the two. Why does it do that? Perhaps it's hidden empathy/altruism circuitry. Or maybe the rat's just afraid of what its cagemate will do if it eats all the food and then the trapped rat gets out. Contrary to what most people think, domesticated rats are very much like domesticated dogs in terms of temperament... very social animals, usually with a playful temperament, but can also be very territorial and assertive. And territorial fighting usually occurs over shared, limited resources, like food. (I will say, chocolate is a good choice. Rats love chocolate. Some of our rats will eat 30 - 40 M&Ms in a half-hour experiment. Not bad for an animal weighing 300 grams.)

Maybe it is altruism or empathy. But true altruism is doing something good and expecting nothing in return, not a pain avoidance strategy.

Re:Motivation is a complicated emotion

[Sockatume]

maybe the rat's just afraid of what its cagemate will do if it eats all the food and then the trapped rat gets out.

That, in itself, would be an interesting result as it would require that the rat anticipate the other rat's reaction without prior experience of the situation. That's not believed to be a common ability in animals.

Empathy

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally I can prove not all people have it.

Re:Idiot scientists with an anti-human agenda.

[DC2088]

Are you secretly William Lane Craig?

ironic much?

[someonestolecc]

Wait. Did anyone else pick up the irony? Empathy lets us feel another persons pain. We just "discovered" that rats have the ability to it.. - Great news! We can be cruel to rats in order to learn more about our empathy? There are two immediate possibilites that pop into mind from there: that the planned research to generalise over to us is intended to help us disable or manipulate empathy ... and or that in other news, human to animal empathy is showing to be lacking. i liked the post saying to speak to any pet owner or look at any wildlife doco...

Military applications...

[Shark]

I can see how the military would be quite interested in this. If this helps them develop a drug that turns off empathy, they'll finally have soldiers that are willing to shoot on their own population when the shit really hits the fan.

Re:Military applications...

[GameboyRMH]

Already exists, it's called "money." Most of us just haven't received an effective dose to find out if it works on us.

Re:Military applications...

[bill_mcgonigle]

they'll finally have soldiers that are willing to shoot on their own population when the shit really hits the fan.

History shows that your requirement for a brainwashing drug is wishful thinking.

Disappointing heading

[CODiNE]

I was thinking "OOooh, rodent telepathy, that's awesome".

Oh, never mind. More like "Rats have empathy"

Rats entanglement?

[lolococo]

Man, I was, like, so hoping it was another application of quantum physics.

Re:Rats entanglement?

[idontgno]

I'm not sure I like where that leads.

Good news, everyone! I've invented quantum entanglement faster-than-light communications! Unfortunately, to make it work, we'll have to torture one of you in Morse code patterns of pain and decode the sympathetic response at the other end.

Who wants to be my first transmitter helper?

Re:Rats entanglement?

[Anonymous Coward]

what no Professor Farnsworth voice?

Re:Rats entanglement?

[JazzLad]

Meh, he started with "Good news, everyone" - my internal reading voice switched over immediately.

No surprise at all.

[NerveGas]

Anyone who has rats can tell you that they're a whole lot more intelligent and advanced than the stereotype of rats would indicate.

But in more scientific terms, looking at other mammals, we find that... surprise, surprise... their brains are a lot like ours, and they have very similar capabilities, including emotions and feelings, as ours. They do not have them to the same extent as ours, but they do have them. Those are backed up by psychological observations, by anatomical/structural investigations, and by brain scans.

So what you are saying is....

[MarkGriz]

Humans don't give a rat's ass, but rats do.

Re:"Empathy Tests=Torture"

[hoboroadie]

If you'd read the articles instead of just shoot from the hip, you'd know.

Yes, they torture one rat, if you define "trap the rat in a small clear tube long enough that they might pee from the mental stresses of discovering they're trapped" as torture.

If you'd read the other article, (Sorry, I couldn't read past the part where they mentioned painful chemical injections.) then you might, indeed, define this as torture. Or not. As I said, I didn't actually complete that.

Re:Socrates

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you, Willard?

Ask people, not mice

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be easier just to ask people why they are empathetic? Thinking I'd get a lot more out of interviewing 100 empathetic people why they feel that way as opposed to trapping a mouse in a maze, given that my goal was to figure out why humans are empathetic. Just sayin'.

Awesome BookTV interview on rats

[GodfatherofSoul]

Years ago I watched a crazy book signing on CSPAN by a layman who basically just sat and watched NYC rats and talked about their behavior. The great thing about it was his frantic "WTF has this guy been snorting?" enthusiasm about rats mixed with pretty insightful observations from a guy spending his nights sitting in trash-filled alley. If you ever catch it on one Saturday afternoon, give it a chance.

My favorite observation was his comments on societal memory. Even after major infrastructural or architectural changes to the city, rats still seemed to follow paths dictated by long-gone geographical features like rivers and hills. He also noted that humans do the same as well! When a prominent street corner building was razed and turned into a paved expanse, pedestrians would still circumnavigate the outline of the building.

Re:Awesome BookTV interview on rats

[Neil Blender]

The book is called "Rats" and it's fascinating.

This is why we use rats rather than lawyers.

[Eunuchswear]

We found that using lawyers or bankers gave results that didn't match the human population.

Rats however gave comparable results.

Rats

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't eat don't sleep
They don't feed they don't seethe
Bare their gums when they moan and squeak
Lick the dirt off a larger one's feet
They don't push don't crowd
Congregate until they're much too loud
Fuck to procreate till they are dead
Drink the blood of their so called best friend

Already established

[ChrisMaple]

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Rat-Clinton-Compromised-Security/dp/0895263335/

Racism (Specism?)

[koan]

They prefer the term "Rodent American" not "rat".

Then, Why Don't Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

...feel the pain of their fellow human beings???

They seem like rats to me.

Re:Then, Why Don't Republicans...

[bussdriver]

Genetic defect; or strongly conditioned behavior that over-rides biology.

Re:Idiot scientists with an anti-human agenda.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While the question of whether that is true or not is philosophically interesting and (hopefully) will one day progress to being neurologically interesting, it seems like a good working assumption, pending evidence to the contrary.

The options are pretty much "Sit in front of chalkboard and wring hands about what it means to experience an emotion, and whether rats do" or "start experimenting with rat behavior, learn something about that, and then possibly ascribe it an emotional significance"....

I welcome our underlords

[Anonymous Coward]

The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people.

Thus these rodents can be used to help determine the lack of empathy of people toward rats in the lab. Great.

U mad?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Rat outside cage talking to rat inside cage, "U mad bro?"

why is this news ?

[kdemetter]

For as long as i can remember, i have known many animals which show empathy.

When you look at dogs for example, i have no doubt they have more empathy than us.
Dogs recognize immediately when you are troubled, and change their behavior based on it. It's one of the reasons people who are afraid of dogs, are more likely to get bitten : they dog knows you are afraid.

The other way around, it's much harder for us to understand what our dogs our feeling. That's the second reason people might get bitten by dogs ( misinterpreting warning signals ).

Re:why is this news ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogs recognize immediately when you are troubled, and change their behavior based on it. It's one of the reasons people who are afraid of dogs, are more likely to get bitten : they dog knows you are afraid.

So dogs are assholes then?

Re:why is this news ?

[uninformedLuddite]

I have had pet chickens for years. They are extremely empathetic.

Re:Try replacing rats wit lawyers for experimentat

[kernelfoobar]

...(using lawyers as text animals)

As opposed to what? Binary animals?

Out of site out of mind

[Colin Smith]

Rivers of animals being driven into slaughter houses.
 

Bingo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rats engage in cannibalism. Perhaps rats seek out other rats in distress for this reason.

You probably hit the nail on the head there. An excellent application of Occam's Razor.

But modern "academia" will likely refuse to consider your theory because it sure doesn't fit their touchy-feely, feel-good, liberal left view of how they wish to redefine the world and cherry-pick data to support their politics. They will attack and ridicule you instead.

Truth is, the world, and nature especially, is quite brutal and violent and always has been, and this is true normalcy for wild critters.

Re:Idiot scientists with an anti-human agenda.

[Galactic Dominator]

WLC comes up with doozy after doozy, but he's not the only apologist gifted with extreme logical gymnastic abilities.

Take Dinesh D'Souza and his definition of torture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Isg6Kx-3xdI#t=3087s

That definition doesn't meet any current standard or definition yet he whips it out, whirls it around, and thinks he won a point on the topic. An appalling lack of intellectual integrity and something WLC would be proud to claim as his own I think.

Now I get it.

[fahrbot-bot]

Now a new study shows that rats will free a trapped cagemate in distress.

Well, that's as good an explanation for the Wall Street bailouts as any I've heard so far...

Glue traps

[Anonymous Coward]

And when one that was stuck in a glue trap at the end of my hallway saw me coming down the hall with a golf club in my hand at 4:00 AM in the morning after it woke me up fluttering around on the floor dragging the heavy glue trap about, it screamed like I've never heard a rat scream before in my life.

It didn't scream for very long, however. B-}

Life imitates art

[Anonymous Coward]

That rat cares for and empathizes with it's fellow rats. Don't let it get away! Break it's legs!

Another reason

[cavebison]

Another reason for "empathy" I can think of, is simply to become aware of danger and run. If one of your herd sees a predator and runs in fear, you will too.

The question is, is this merely a visual cue, or is it actual "empathy", that is imagining yourself as the other?

We have a tradition of assuming animals are incredibly simple and lot like us at all. I think that's been shown often now to be a flawed assumption.

The other rat thought...

[Zanadou]

"Despite all my rage..."

Continuum of awareness rather than categories

[Anonymous Coward]

Brain has evolved and our brain sits in a branch on the evolutionary tree. The mammalian brain has same basic architecture, brainstem, thalmus, cerebral cortex, cerebellum. etc. The wiring between parts are also remarkably similar. It should not be surprising that all the faculties associated with human beings have to be represented in the evolutionary tree somewhere and in various degrees. The closer you get in the tree to being human the more similarity you will find.

Homo Sapiens are just a part of he continuum of life. Of course it is easier to think we are different. We want to feel special. We want to eat animals and not feel guilty etc. At the rate neuroscience is progressing, it is only a matter of few more years before this illusion is wiped away from the scientific community. And then a few more years before this becomes conventional wisdom... like the earth is not flat, we are not the center of the universe etc.