Listening audioscript

4. WHY DOES THE PROFESSOR USE THE EXAMPLE OF THE FISH AND THE 
LIZARD? 
5. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING DOES THE PROFESSOR MENTION AS BEING 
RELATED TO THE PROCESS OF FOSSILIZATION?
6. WHICH OF THESE STEPS OCCUR AS AN ANIMAL BECOMES A
FOSSIL AND 
BECOMES VISIBLE TO HUMANS? 
PASSAGE THREE 
 
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[ mp3 067-068]
Questions 7 through 10.
Listen to a lecture in a behavioral sciences class.
(Professor)
Some of you may have already heard about or seen a video of the story 
I’m going to describe. A tsunami in Africa washed a family of hippos out 
to sea, leaving a baby hippo stranded. The baby hippo was rescued and 
brought to an animal sanctuary, or place for animals to recover. The 
baby hippo was frightened and ran immediately to hide behind a giant 
tortoise. The tortoise came out of its shell and began to cuddle with the 
hippo. The tortoise helped the hippo calm down and they formed a strong 
relationship. This is clearly a case of a tortoise having feelings for a 
frightened baby animal, isn’t it? Is it a case of one animal species 
showing emotions that we, as humans can understand as empathy—that 
is, being able to understand another individual and put oneself in the 
other’s place? Or is there some other reason behind this incident? 

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50
As humans we can never really know what another animal is feeling—we 
just can’t truly get into its head to know what it is thinking. Nevertheless, 
some rather ingenious experiments have been done to get at the 
question of whether some animals have a capacity for empathy. 
The first experiment involves rats. In the experiment, one of two rats who 
were cage-mates…um, they lived in the same cage, so they knew each 
other before the experiment was conducted…uh, the first rat was put in 
an unpleasantly narrow plastic tube that could only be opened from the 
outside. The second one was put in the cage next to, but outside of the 
plastic container. This situation actually made both rats show signs of 
stress.
(Student)
I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand. Were the rats in a maze or in their 
own cage? 
(Professor)
OK, imagine it this way. You and your roommate agree to be part of an 
experiment, so you go down to the lab. Your roommate goes off into a 
room, and when you follow him a few minutes later, you’re in a room 
that’s empty except for a plastic tube with your roommate inside. The 
tube is so tight that he can’t even move his arms. He’s not in pain and 
can breathe, but it’s obviously uncomfortable and he tells you so. If you 
have empathy for your roommate’s claustrophobic condition, both of you 
will feel stress as you try to figure out how to get him out.
OK, so in the actual experiment, the second rat eventually learned how 
to open the container, and from that point on, every time the rats were in 
the situation, the second rat would quickly open the container to free the 
imprisoned first rat. The second rat would not, however, open the 
container if it was empty or contained a toy rat. Now, here’s the thing:
the second rat would open the container even if it meant sharing 
chocolate chips with his newly freed cage-mate. That is, the second rat 
would liberate his trapped cage-mate even when it didn’t seem to help 
the second rat in any way, and even if it meant getting fewer treats. What 
could explain this? Maybe it was just that the second rat wanted to get 
rid of his own stress by freeing his companion, and it wasn’t a true 
understanding of the first rat’s discomfort at all. But maybe the second rat 
did, in some way, understand his cage-mate’s discomfort and act to 
relieve it.
This desire to relieve the pain of another could also be at work in 
chimpanzees. In a few different studies, chimpanzees have been found 
to exhibit consoling behavior toward an individual chimpanzee that has 
just been on the losing end of some violent disagreement with another 
chimpanzee. That is, a chimp might approach and put its arm around 
another chimpanzee that had just lost a fight. Now there were all kinds of 
interesting variables that were observed and recorded in these studies. 
For example, it turns out that female chimps showed consoling behavior 
more often than males…except…except for the dominant male. The 
researchers thought it might be due to the dominant male’s role in 
maintaining solidarity in the group. Um…other factors that increased how 
much a chimpanzee was consoled was whether the two chimps were 
related, whether the action had been reciprocated, I mean the chimp had 
been consoled similarly in the past, and even how high of a social status 
the victim had in the group. Higher-status chimps got more consolation 

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51
from others. So, maybe the chimps really felt each other’s pain and 
wanted to make the victim feel better. That is, maybe the chimpanzees 
were showing true empathy. Or maybe it was just socially useful to 
console the loser, and not primarily empathy. With the confounding 
factors involved, it’s not clear exactly what the motivation was in many 
cases.
With these studies as examples, it would seem that some animals 
display behavior that may be an understanding of and desire to relieve 
another’s pain. As more research is completed, we can test the 
alternative explanations that have been presented here. Perhaps we can 
find out which, if any animals beyond humans, experience true empathy.