The two questions might be seen as special cases — or, alternatively, as generalized versions — of the skeptical “problem of other minds” — how can one know that others have mental states that are anything like one's own?  Although there is no generally accepted solution to this problem, it is nevertheless generally ignored to good effect by psychologists, and indeed by most people, who in practice are willing to take for granted that others have mental states similar to theirs. However it is often thought that knowledge of animal minds presents special methodological difficulties. First of all, nonhuman animals cannot describe their mental states using language. Although there have been attempts to teach human-like languages to members of other species, none has reached a level of conversational ability that would solve this problem directly (see Anderson 2004 for a review). Furthermore, except for some language-related work with parrots and dolphins, such approaches are generally limited to those animals most like ourselves, particularly the great apes. But there is great interest in possible forms of consciousness in a much wider variety of species than are suitable for such research.  More generally, the problem of other minds is more acute when applied to nonhuman animals because the similarities between our behavior and bodies, and those of others animals (which form the basis for ‘analogical’ solutions to the problem of other minds) are less exact. As well, the perceptual access to other minds that some have argued defuses the problem of other minds is arguably weaker regarding the minds of other animals. (Sober (2000) discusses of the problem of other minds within an evolutionary framework, and Farah 2008 provides a neuroscientist's perspective.)