Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows neurobiologist Professor Lesley Rogers at work in her classroom and laboratory as a background to the narrated story of how her work on brain lateralisation has raised new ideas about animal consciousness. A panning shot in a classroom shows Rogers talking to her students about brain asymmetry. Sequences show her in laboratories with research animals – chicks and marmosets. Finally Rogers explains to camera the implications for animal welfare if her hypothesis is correct and animals experience consciousness.

Educational value points

• The clip raises questions about definitions of animal consciousness that have been the subject of much debate in scientific circles and continue to engage scientists such as Rogers. Animals certainly feel, but this may not be the same as actual consciousness – they may be conscious in a different way from humans. Some animals display higher level cognitive functioning that may or may not provide evidence of higher consciousness.

• Rogers’s research on the link between brain physiology and behaviour in animals, referred to in the clip, challenges ideas of human superiority. She has found that brain lateralisation is present in animals – this is the separate functioning of the left and right side of the brain, formerly thought to be a unique characteristic of humans and responsible for certain superior abilities such as the ability to use tools and to speak, and perhaps for consciousness itself.

• The question of whether or not animals are conscious in the sense described in the clip is a crucial one in informing the way in which humans relate to animals. Consciousness implies feeling higher emotions. If animals are able to feel higher emotions – such as love, grief and fidelity – then they should be accorded rights that would challenge current animal husbandry practices, hunting, scientific experimentation and even petkeeping.

• In 1987 Rogers, an important Australian neurobiologist, was awarded a Doctorate of Science from Sussex University for her research into brain development and behaviour, the field that has gained her international recognition. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and founder of the Research Centre for Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour at the University of New England in New South Wales.

• The film provides a view into university research laboratories and classrooms. Rogers is shown engaged in teaching as well as in research. Cages containing chicks and marmosets illustrate the ways in which animals are housed and used for scientific research, for example one of the chicks appears to have a device implanted in its head.