ven if there is no categorical prohibition against attributing human properties to animals: Some researchers may be too quick to conclude that an animal is using some higher-order"process in a particular instance. One concern is that researchers may have a failure of imagination when it comes to hypothesis generation A false dichotomy: either animals are stimulus-response machines or they are agents with beliefs and desires; since animals are not stimulus-response machines they must be psychological agents The problem with this argument is that not all machines implement stimulus-response functions some machines are complex and indeterministic, and if animals were machines, they would be machines of that sort.Even if there is no categorical prohibition against attributing human properties to animals:  Some researchers may be too quick to conclude that an animal is using some “higher-order” process in a particular instance. One concern is that researchers may have a failure of imagination when it comes to hypothesis generation.  A false dichotomy: either animals are stimulus-response machines, or they are agents with beliefs and desires; since animals are not stimulus-response machines, they must be psychological agents.  The problem with this argument is that not all machines implement stimulus-response functions; some machines are complex and indeterministic, and if animals were machines, they would be machines of that sort