Great article and fascinating research.

“Some insects are surely intelligent, but does that mean they are conscious? Chittka says that much like 'intelligence' the designation of consciousness depends on one's definition. To date science has not yet been able to satisfactorily answer this question in regards to insects.”

There have been some recent and impressive leaps in theories of consciousness - neuroscience, memetics, and paleopsychology (and even some notions of eastern mysticism as Ramachandran’s work on mirror neurons suggests) all seem to overlapping rather interestingly. “Science” (in terms of what is culturally accepted amongst the pocket-protected and peer-reviewed superstars...) is a relatively slow process and rarely provides satisfactory answers to emerging questions… let’s see if I can approach an answer to the question “are insects conscious?”

I think it is helpful to distinguish and highlight the specific differences between human conscious phenomena and that of animals. Human consciousness seems to have evolved the trait of subjective awareness only several thousand years ago – this gives humans unique self-referential qualities and behaviors.

Some researchers in the field of consciousness see it as a continuum reducible to matter itself: a pen dropped on the floor stops at the floor – the pen is “conscious” of the floor. That continuum of awareness spans through all of life: bacteria respond to their chemical environments with a simple level of “consciousness.” In this definition consciousness resembles simple awareness/reactivity – much different from the complex and unique abilities of human consciousness to construct an analog mind space for introspection into an imagined past and future. With this distinction – the trait of reflective consciousness – it seems that insects and other organisms (even pre-linguistic humans!) are “conscious” but not reflectively (or subjectively as most humans are) conscious. To summarize the differences – insects and other organisms may be conscious of their environments in that they respond with certain levels of awareness whereas subjectively conscious humans elicit the same responses in most of their behavior (driving a car you are usually not reflecting on the act…) BUT are additionally able – due to symbol manipulation (culture/language) and special neural structures/connections - to create an imaginary reality in an introspective mind space to reflect on thoughts and possible situations with an analog of the self represented by the subject pronoun “I.” this differentiation explains why suicide is a uniquely human trait, which is likely to have only recently evolved (the bible book of 1 Samuel describes one of the first historical suicides – that of Saul). It is doubtful that a self could not overcome the instinct to live without an introspective notion of “the self” – wounded animals will suffer terrible pain and never commit suicide because they cannot conjure a perception of “themselves” in the future, as subjectively conscious humans may do. This marks the triumph of memes over genes – ideas and conceptualizations of the world have become able to overpower the natural will to survive… it will be interesting to see what happens as the ego and subjectivity are revealed as incomplete analogs of the self and alternative reflective consciousnesses emerge in culture…

So no, insects are not reflectively or subjectively conscious – again, as you say it all depends on definition of consciousness. I think we can assume the insect level of consciousness is similar to that of most other organisms - they possess aptic structures (innate neural organizations/structures that make certain behaviors likely in certain conditions) evolved to process cues leading to interaction with one other and their environs but are unable to symbolically represent themselves in subjective or reflective aspects.
For more info on consciousness, check out VS Ramachandran’s work, that of Rebecca Saxe, Dan Dennet, and Julian Jaynes. Rama’s “a brief tour of human consciousness” will clarify a lot – he has some mind blowing online talks, too.