Can anthropomorphic analyses of separation cries in other animals inform us about the emotional nature of social loss in humans? Comment on Blumberg and Sokoloff (2001)

Abstract

M. S. Blumberg and G. Sokoloff's (2001) critical analysis has raised doubt whether emotional feelings can be studied in nonhuman animals, and they have reaffirmed the inappropriateness of anthropomorphic reasoning in animal research. They argue that the ultrasonic distress calls of infant rats may be little more than acoustic by-products of bodily adjustments to physiological stressors. This author argues that comparable vocalizations in other species do index separation distress. Considering that there may be deep homologies in the neural systems that govern such emotional processes in many mammalian species, anthropomorphic-zoomorphic reasoning may be a viable cross-species research strategy as long as it is limited to neuroscientific contexts that lead to testable predictions in humans and other animals.