Current challenges in animal communication research

In the fifty years since Donald Griffin’s groundbreaking publication, countless scientific papers have appeared on the ‘mental landscape’ (broadly interpreted) of various groups of animals other than humans. It is noticeable that as the number of publications has grown, so have controversies and theoretical debates, and advances in our understanding of animal minds continue to be called into question. In this article, I attempt to outline four key ways in which Griffin’s 1976 hypotheses have been both a challenge and an inspiration for the development of interdisciplinary animal cognition and comparative cognition. Griffinrepeatedly emphasises the potential value of communication with animals as a source of information about the mental experiences and states animals may possess, including states of consciousness, so these four challenges for contemporary interdisciplinary studies are also related to methodological issues relating to animal communication.