Averaged evoked potentials recorded from human and animal brains do sometimes correlate with the presence or absence of discrimination between patterns of sensory stimulation that differ in importance to the person or animal concerned. Animal communication is not the only source of at least suggestive evidence that animals engage in some sort of thinking. On the basis of this sort of common observation of pets and other domestic animals, those concerned with language and thinking have tended to conclude that animal communication always relates to very pressing and immediate situations and stimuli. The communication conveys information about things that are remote in both time and space from the sensory stimuli reaching the communicating animals at the time the communication takes place. Virtually all ethological evidence concerning the information conveyed by animal communication signals is necessarily limited to observing their effects on other animals.