ArticlePlant signaling & behavior2020
Extended cognition in plants: is it possible?
Article in Plant signaling & behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mite Infestation Induces a Moderate Oxidative Stress in Short-Term Soybean Exposure.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Extending cognition: a vegetal rejoinder to extensionless thought and to extended cognition.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Article
- β-Aminobutyric acid promotes stress tolerance, physiological adjustments, as well as broad epigenetic changes at DNA and RNA nucleobases in field elms (Ulmus minor).BMC plant biology · 2024Article
- Epistolution: a new principle necessary to a learning-first theory of life.Communicative & integrative biology · 2024Article
- Stomatal patchiness and cellular computing.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- From dark to darkness, negative phototropism influences the support-tree location of the massive woody climberPlant signaling & behavior · 2022Article
- Kinematic Evidence of Root-to-Shoot Signaling for the Coding of Support Thickness in Pea Plants.Biology · 2022Article
- Sowing the seeds of intentionality: Motor intentions in plants.Plant signaling & behavior · 2021Review
- Speed-accuracy trade-off in plants.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2020Article
- Effects of hydric stress on vibrational frequency patterns ofPlant signaling & behavior · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Plants do not possess brains or neurons. However, they present astonishingly complex behaviors such as information acquisition, memory, learning, decision making, etc., which helps these sessile organisms deal with their ever-changing environments. As a consequence, they have been proposed to be cognitive and intelligent, an idea which is becoming increasingly accepted. However, how plant cognition could operate without a nervous central system remains poorly understood and new insights on this topic are urgently needed. According to the Extended Cognition hypothesis, cognition may also occur beyond the limits of the body, encompassing objects from the environment. This was shown possible in humans and spiders, who actively manipulate their external environment to extend their cognitive capacity. Here, we propose that extended cognition may also be found in plants and could partly explain the complexity of plant behavior. We suggest that plants can extend their cognitive abilities to the environment they manipulate through the root influence zone and the mycorrhizal fungi that associate with them. The possibility of a cognitive process involving organisms from different kingdoms is exciting and worthwhile exploring as it may provide key insights into the origin and evolution of cognition.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.