Noxious Nomenclature: Inconsistent Language Hampers Our Assessment of Invertebrate Pain, Sentience, and Awareness
Abstract
Whether invertebrates possess the capacity for subjective experiences, particularly that of pain, is a frontier question in cognitive ethology. Central to this inquiry is the examination of pain-like behaviours elicited by noxious stimulation under leading sentience frameworks. Here we discuss our concerns on how the usage of the terms ‘noxious’ and ‘aversive’ in an interchangeable manner throughout past and emerging work may hamper current assessments of invertebrate pain-related literature. We briefly discuss the etymology of these terms, provide use cases that illustrate how conflation obscures interpretation, and propose a simple yet effective solution.
Keywords: behavior, cognitive ethology, neuroscience, non-human animal, physiology