Among other brilliant capabilities, the octopus has the ability to visually attend and track strikingly more than other invertebrates. David Edelman, Ph.D. and visiting scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, believes that this ability can give us insight into the consciousness of octopus. Edelman aims to establish whether consciousness and awareness can be demonstrated in the octopus by providing evidence of skills such as visual perception, working memory, and “binding,” the integration of sensory input from multiple sources into a unified percept. Click play to learn more.
Keep an eye out for the work of Edelman and his colleague, Dr. Peter Tse, as they will be coauthoring papers on their research findings.