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The Sensitivity Of Qba Assessments Of Sheep Behavioural Expression To Variations In Visual Or Verbal Information Provided To Observers, P. A. Fleming, S. L. Wickham, C. A. Stockman, E. Verbeek, L. Matthews, F. Wemelsfelder

Françoise Wemelsfelder, PhD

Qualitative behavioural assessment (QBA) is based on observers’ ability to capture the dynamic complexity of an animal’s demeanour as it interacts with the environment, in terms such as tense, anxious or relaxed. Sensitivity to context is part of QBA’s integrative capacity and discriminatory power; however, when not properly managed it can also be a source of undesirable variability and bias. This study investigated the sensitivity of QBA to variations in the visual or verbal information provided to observers, using free-choice profiling (FCP) methodology. FCP allows observers to generate their own descriptive terms for animal demeanour, against which each animal’s expressions …