ReviewProtoplasma2021
Debunking a myth: plant consciousness.
Review in Protoplasma, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Foundations of cognitive systems: exploring the architecture of mind and intelligence.Cognitive processing · 2026Review
- Plant emotion revisited: toward a new conceptual framework.Protoplasma · 2026Review
- Progress and ongoing conceptual challenges "on the way to integrative human neuroscience"-ten years after.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2026Article
- All Organisms Can Be Anesthetized, but There's No Point?BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
- Plant "intelligence" and the misuse of historical sources as evidence.Protoplasma · 2025Review
- Don't jump the gun quite yet: aiming for the true target in plant neurobiology research.Protoplasma · 2025Article
- Understanding otherness-the anthropocentrism trap.Protoplasma · 2025Article
- How to Live in the Moment: The Methodology and Limitations of Evolutionary Research on Consciousness.Cognitive science · 2025Article
- On the origin of Earth's Universal BioConsciousness.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Vegetal memory through the lens of transcriptomic changes - recent progress and future practical prospects for exploiting plant transcriptional memory.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Review
- The "plant neurobiology" revolution.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Review
- Induced resistance to herbivory and the intelligent plant.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Review
- Touch, light, wounding: how anaesthetics affect plant sensing abilities.Plant cell reports · 2024Review
- How (not) to Talk to a Plant: An Application of Automata Theory to Plant Communication.Acta biotheoretica · 2024Article
- Cell consciousness: a dissenting opinion : The cellular basis of consciousness theory lacks empirical evidence for its claims that all cells have consciousness.EMBO reports · 2024Article
- Neuroanatomy of the Will.NeuroSci · 2022Article
- Editorial: Comparative animal consciousness.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2022Article
- What Is It Like to Be a Bass? Red Herrings, Fish Pain and the Study of Animal Sentience.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Review
- Our sisters the plants? notes from phylogenetics and botany on plant kinship blindness.Plant signaling & behavior · 2021Article
- Plants make smart decisions in complex environments.Plant signaling & behavior · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Claims that plants have conscious experiences have increased in recent years and have received wide coverage, from the popular media to scientific journals. Such claims are misleading and have the potential to misdirect funding and governmental policy decisions. After defining basic, primary consciousness, we provide new arguments against 12 core claims made by the proponents of plant consciousness. Three important new conclusions of our study are (1) plants have not been shown to perform the proactive, anticipatory behaviors associated with consciousness, but only to sense and follow stimulus trails reactively; (2) electrophysiological signaling in plants serves immediate physiological functions rather than integrative-information processing as in nervous systems of animals, giving no indication of plant consciousness; (3) the controversial claim of classical Pavlovian learning in plants, even if correct, is irrelevant because this type of learning does not require consciousness. Finally, we present our own hypothesis, based on two logical assumptions, concerning which organisms possess consciousness. Our first assumption is that affective (emotional) consciousness is marked by an advanced capacity for operant learning about rewards and punishments. Our second assumption is that image-based conscious experience is marked by demonstrably mapped representations of the external environment within the body. Certain animals fit both of these criteria, but plants fit neither. We conclude that claims for plant consciousness are highly speculative and lack sound scientific support.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.