Arianna Risoli

Behavioural Markers of Consciousness Shape Moral Status Judgments

PsyArXiv March 19, 2026 Matan Mazor, Arianna Risoli, Anna Eberhardt et al. preprint

Whether an individual is conscious or not has important ethical and legal implications. For example, animal welfare regulations seek to minimize suffering in conscious animals, and AI ethics discussions focus on the possibility of artificial consciousness as a key concern. Critically, consciousness cannot be directly perceived, but must be inferred from external cues such as behaviour and...