Perhaps to better understand the difference between human and animal abilities of perceiving a connotational attribute, a variation of a popular thought experiment might be brought to mind: Imagine that you’ve received an antique woolen sweater in excellent condition — just the sort of thing you like. As you’re pulling it on, the gift giver informs you that it once belonged to Hitler, but that it doesn’t matter, as the sweater has been thoroughly dry-cleaned. The revulsion that most would experience is a connotational attribute, albeit one that only human beings can perceive. There is nothing in the sensible form of the sweater that can elicit disgust, yet a connotation generating just that feeling becomes inexorably attached to it; and that connotation cannot even be burned out.

Returning to a more basic, animal level: there are connotational attributes perceivable by both animals and humans, such as, for instance, the danger inherent in snakes, a danger quickly recognized by both infants and nonhuman primates. Several studies have demonstrated that very young children are able to pick out pictures of snakes quicker than pictures of flowers. Anthropologist Lynne Isbell holds that snake detection actually contributed to the evolution of primate visual systems. This is what I mean by connotational attributes’ being an explanatory device; the phenomenon described in terms of snake detection by means of a visual system evolved to detect snakes can be described as an ability to perceive the connotation of danger inherent in the form of a snake. The advantage of the former description is its degree of abstraction, which allows more comparisons to be drawn and commonalities to be established. It links the domain of behavioral biology with general knowledge.

Connotational attributes for pleasure and profit

i. Danger and cuteness

According to Avicenna, sheep can perceive the connotational attributes of hostility in the forms of wolves, and harmony in the forms of their folds. Infants and primates perceive danger in the form of snakes. In all cases, the connotational attribute is nowhere to be found in the form of the wolf, a fold of sheep, or a snake, rather it is inherent in the form, and perceivable by an estimative faculty suited to its perception — neither infants nor primates can perceive harmony in the form of a fold of sheep, nor would any of the creatures just mentioned be revolted by Hilter’s old sweater; that connotational attribute is perceivable only by moderately well-informed adults and teenagers. The question then naturally follows is whether prey animals can recognize the danger of novel predators — it appears that those with multiple natural predators can, at least to some degree. The simpler the brain and the estimation, the worse the animal’s ability to do so. Some species of fish are quite bad at it.

Do not all predatory animals carry some connotation of danger in their features? Any child’s drawing of an imaginary dangerous animal will likely have a fanged mouth and sharp claws. What if we consider connotational attributes from the opposite end? Is there a connotational attribute inhering in a certain set of features that evokes a feeling of tenderness rather than fear? Both Konrad Lorenz and Walt Disney hit upon it, although via different routes, as Stephen J. Gould points out in his essay A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse. Lorenz’s term was features of juvenility; Disney animators simply called it cuteness. Gould shows that as Mickey Mouse’s originally mischievous, slightly sadistic behavior grew tamer, his appearance was altered by the artist to express juvenile features common to most mammals — large eyes, pudgy limbs, a short snout and a relatively large head. Anything that looks like a baby will trigger innate releasing mechanisms — in Lorenz’s words — in us: feelings of tenderness and affection, cooing, aww-ing, a slight dilation of the pupils. Infants, puppies, kittens and wombat joeys all have similar effects:

Many animals, for reasons having nothing to do with the inspiration of affection in humans, possess some features also shared by human babies but not by human adults — large eyes and a bulging forehead with retreating chin, in particular. We are drawn to them, we cultivate them as pets, we stop and admire them in the wild — while we reject their small-eyed, long-snouted relatives who might make more affectionate companions or objects of admiration. Lorenz points out that the German names of many animals with features mimicking human babies end in the diminutive suffix -chen, even though the animals are often larger than close relatives without such features — Rotkehlchen (robin), Eichhörnchen (squirrel), and Kaninchen (rabbit), for example. (Gould, 1980, pg.2)

The connotational attribute of cuteness is inherent in any image or material thing possessing the features described by Lorenz and drawn by Disney animators; the attribute can even inhere in what would normally be a grotesque set of features: hairy ears, diamond navels, beaks — something attested to by the success of Furby and Troll Doll toys.

ii. Sexiness

In the 1960s, Schein and Hale conducted a series of experiments to determine the stimulus necessary to induce mating behavior in a male turkey. These experiments, it should be noted, had practical implications for the poultry industry and were not — as I confess I first thought — a case of scientific curiosity gone awry. Male turkeys, predictably enough, attempted to mate with a stationary taxidermied female. Parts of the taxidermy were removed until only the head, mounted on a stick, remained. The sight of a female turkey head connotes mating partner to a male turkey. A wooden model of a turkey head suffices, although it is not preferred. The criteria for triggering this innate releasing mechanism, or for manifesting this connotational attribute, are not particularly narrow. A turkey’s estimative faculty is rather simple; it can be fooled by something that is not a female turkey at all, but an incomplete model. Neither apes, nor fish, nor humans find turkey heads mounted on sticks to be objects of sexual desire. We can posit on the basis of empirical studies that the connotational attribute of, for lack of a better word, sexiness, is inherent in the model — but a particular connotational attribute, and only for turkeys.

But which features connote sexiness to human males? Waist-to-hip ratio and breast size are at the top of the list, followed by facial features (Szczuka and Krämer 2017, pg.3); symmetry, clear skin, and so on. The estimative faculties of human males are more sophisticated than those of turkeys, but are not infallible, as the booming sex doll industry makes undeniably clear. The more expensive models, usually upwards of 6000 USD, look (and are reported to feel) strikingly lifelike. Within the bare facts of the doll’s features, many men discern sexiness to the same degree as they would in a human female — even when they explicitly state otherwise. The study conducted by Szczuka and Krämer (2017) indicates that there is a disparity between explicit assessments — real women are said to be more attractive — and implicit assessments. In an experiment designed to bypass the mediation of preferences via social norms and shame, no difference was found in the perceived attractiveness of women as compared to sex robots. It is an uncomfortable admission, but silicone, rubber, and synthetic hair arranged in the correct manner is enough to provoke mating behavior in human males. That men know their silicone companions are not actual women puts them, comfortingly, in a class far above turkeys.

Concluding remarks

In The Confusions of Young Torless, Musil describes a meeting with a teacher of mathematics: the young Torless, unsatisfied by the explanations he has received from his peers, wants badly to understand the concept of imaginary numbers; what is this thing, the square root of -1? The teacher, after some rambling, declares that Torless must have faith, that when he one day acquires ten times more mathematical knowledge, he will understand, but for the time being, faith remains the only recourse. Such is the case with modern sciences. It seems that no one except experts are in a position to truly understand, say, quantum physics or behavioral biology. Specialization may however come at the cost of a bird’s-eye view; an awareness of how the entire world hangs together. It was not always thus — both Aristotle and Avicenna had systems of thought that encompassed all phenomena. I do not think it is possible to return to a state of affairs in which one lifetime was sufficient to understand ourselves and the world around us, but a more holistic, if shorthand, understanding certainly is possible. Konrad Lorenz speaks of the phenomenon of innate releasing mechanisms; Disney animators have learned to “trade on a biological illusion”, as Gould puts it. But if we are to form a coherent picture, we ought to give this class of things a name and describe how they generally function; we need a concept to tie things together a bit more. Turkeys, Mickey Mouse, and sex dolls have more in common than might at first glance appear.