''Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling'' is a

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...

. Its subject matter, animal sentience, concerns what and how nonhuman animals think and feel as well as the scientific and scholarly methods of investigating it and conveying the findings to the general public. The initial publisher was the Animal Studies Repository of the Institute for Science and Policy of

The Humane Society of the United States The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. ...

, now the Animal Studies Repository of WellBeing International. The

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

Stevan Harnad Stevan Robert Harnad (Hernád István Róbert, Hesslein István, born June 2, 1945, Budapest) is a Hungarian-born cognitive scientist based in Montreal, Canada. Education Harnad was born in Budapest, Hungary. He did his undergraduate work at McG ...

History

The 2012 ''

Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within a non-human animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience, awaren ...

'' led to many scientists acknowledging that animals other than humans can feel subjectively and experience

qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...

. In response to this, in 2014, the Institute for Science and Policy decided to create a peer-reviewed journal focused on animal sentience. The first issue of ''Animal Sentience'' appeared in 2016. A target article on

pain in fish Whether fish feel pain similar to humans or differently is a contentious issue. Pain is a complex mental state, with a distinct perceptual quality but also associated with suffering, which is an emotional state. Because of this complexity, t ...

in the inaugural issue drew 45 commentary articles as well as media attention.

Publication model

All articles accepted for publication are open to

open peer commentary Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is w ...

, in which multiple researchers may submit mini-articles criticizing, clarifying, or elaborating on the article from the viewpoint of any research field relevant to its content.

References

External links

* {{Animal rights, state=collapsed, media Animal ethics journals English-language journals Publications established in 2016 Ethology journals Creative Commons Attribution-licensed journals