Comparative Psychology Commons^™

Social Interaction, Social Cognition, And Personality In Gartersnakes And Ball Pythons, Morgan Skinner

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Snakes are often considered non-social animals. However, this is mostly an untested assumption and the limited research that has been done has shown that snakes interact socially when given the opportunity. Here, the complexity of snake social interactions was explored through a social cognition and personality lens. Group and individual behavioural assays were used to explore flexibility and consistency in social interactions. The results provide evidence that elucidate the function, development, and evolution of these behaviours in snakes. In the first experimental chapter, chapter 2, social network analysis was used to provide a detailed description of aggregation behaviour in 4 …

Is Enrichment Always Enriching And How Would You Know? Unintended Consequences And The Importance Of Formal Assessment Of Enrichment Programs In Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Heidi Lyn, Hannah Bahe, Megan S. Broadway, Mystera M. Samuelson, Jamie K. Shelley, Tim Hoffland, Emma Jarvis, Kelly Pulis, Delphine Shannon, Mobashir Solangi

Student Publications

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are viewed as a highly intelligent species capable of complex behaviors. This requires marine parks to maintain dynamic environmental enrichment programs in order to ensure dolphins’ optimal psychological and physiological well-being while in human care. In this study, two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of different forms of enrichment on the behavior of four bottlenose dolphins. In Experiment 1, multiple forms of novel enrichment resulted in a shift away from individual swim patterns – a change that is associated with increased behavioral diversity and so often considered an improvement in animal welfare …

Farm Animal Cognition—Linking Behavior, Welfare And Ethics, Christian Nawroth, Jan Langbein, Marjorie Coulon, Vivian Gabor, Susan Oesterwind, Judith Benz-Schwarzburg, Eberhard Von Borell

Social Cognition Collection

Farm animal welfare is a major concern for society and food production. To more accurately evaluate animal farming in general and to avoid exposing farm animals to poor welfare situations, it is necessary to understand not only their behavioral but also their cognitive needs and capacities. Thus, general knowledge of how farm animals perceive and interact with their environment is of major importance for a range of stakeholders, from citizens to politicians to cognitive ethologists to philosophers. This review aims to outline the current state of farm animal cognition research and focuses on ungulate livestock species, such as cattle, horses, …

A Global Reassessment Of Solitary-Sociable Dolphins, Laetitia Nunny, Mark P. Simmonds

Personality Collection

Dolphins are typically regarded as highly social animals. However, some individuals live apart from their own species and may come to socialize with people through a recognized series of stages which are presented and expanded on in this paper. The term “solitary-sociable dolphins” has been used to describe these animals and such individuals have been identified from several different species and reported in many parts of the world. In many instances, the interactions with people that may follow their original isolation, and which typically become more intense over time, have created situations where the welfare of the animal has been …

Demographics Regarding Belief In Non-Human Animal Sentience And Emotional Empathy With Animals: A Pilot Study Among Attendees Of An Animal Welfare Symposium, Amelia Cornish, Bethany Wilson, David Raubenheimer, Paul Mcgreevy

Societal Attitudes Toward Animals Collection

Attitudes to animals are linked to beliefs about their ability to experience pain and suffering, their cognition, and their sentience. Education and awareness-raising play a pivotal role in increasing society’s consideration of non-human animal welfare. The current pilot study explores the attitudes towards animal welfare among a unique population of people who attended an animal welfare symposium at the University of Sydney. It involved administration of a validated questionnaire that assessed attitudes to animals; specifically exploring participants’ (n = 41) beliefs about the sentience of animals and their emotional empathy with animals. The resultant data revealed significant associations between participants’ …

On-Farm Qualitative Behaviour Assessment Of Dairy Goats In Different Housing Conditions, Lilia Grosso, Monica Battini, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Sara Barbieri, Michela Minero, Emanuela Dalla Costa, Silvana Mattiello

Sentience Collection

This study reports the results of the first investigation on the use of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) in dairy goats, using a fixed-list of descriptors specifically developed for this species. It aimed to verify whether QBA can be reliably used by observers with different backgrounds to differentiate between the emotional states of goats kept under different environmental conditions. Two trained observers simultaneously assessed 16 dairy goat farms (8 “Housed” (H) farms, where animals were observed in free stall pens, and 8 “Pasture” (P) farms, where animals were observed in open ranges), using a list of 16 QBA descriptors that were …

Are Domestic Pigs (Sus Scrofa Domestica) Able To Use Complex Human-Given Cues To Find A Hidden Reward?, Christian Nawroth, Mirjam Ebersbach, Eberhard Von Borell

Social Cognition Collection

Understanding human-animal interactions in livestock production systems is crucial for improving animal welfare. It is therefore of general interest to investigate how livestock animals obtain information from humans. By using an object-choice paradigm, we investigated whether domestic pigs (n = 4) are able to use a variety of human-given cues, such as different pointing gestures, to find a hidden food reward. In Experiment 1, an experimenter pointed towards a baited location in front of the pig while the extent of the protrusion of his hand from the upper body was varied. Pigs had problems using pointing gestures that did not …

Acoustic Analysis Of Cattle (Bos Taurus) Mother–Offspring Contact Calls From A Source–Filter Theory Perspective, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Elodie F. Briefer, Tom Reader, Alan G. Mcelligott

Sentience Collection

Cattle vocalisations have been proposed as potential indicators of animal welfare. How-ever, very few studies have investigated the acoustic structure and information encoded in these vocalisations using advanced analysis techniques. Vocalisations play key roles in a wide range of communication contexts; e.g. for individual recognition and to help coordinate social behaviours. Two factors have greatly assisted our progress in developing an understanding of animal vocal communication. Firstly, more rigorous call analysis methods allow us to describe the variation in the vocal parameters in unprecedented detail. Secondly, the adoption of the “source–filter theory” of call production links the acoustic structure of …

The Use Of Judgement Bias To Assess Welfare In Farm Livestock, L. Baciadonna, A. G. Mcelligott

Sentience Collection

The development of accurate measures of animal emotions is important for improving and promoting animal welfare. Cognitive bias indicates the effect of emotional states on cognitive processes, such as memory, attention, and judgement. Cognitive bias tests complement existing behavioural and physiological measures for assessing the valence of animal emotions indirectly. The judgement bias test has been used to assess emotional states in non-human animals; mainly in laboratory settings. The aim of this review is to summarise the findings on the use of the judgement bias test approach in assessing emotions in non-human animals, focusing in particular on farm livestock. The …

Defining And Assessing Animal Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Robert W. Elwood, Shelley A. Adamo, Matthew C. Leach

Experimentation Collection

The detection and assessment of pain in animals is crucial to improving their welfare in a variety of contexts in which humans are ethically or legally bound to do so. Thus clear standards to judge whether pain is likely to occur in any animal species is vital to inform whether to alleviate pain or to drive the refinement of procedures to reduce invasiveness, thereby minimizing pain. We define two key concepts that can be used to evaluate the potential for pain in both invertebrate and vertebrate taxa. First, responses to noxious, potentially painful events should affect neurobiology, physiology and behaviour …

Rescued Goats At A Sanctuary Display Positive Mood After Former Neglect, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott

Sentience Collection

Moods influence cognitive processes in that people in positive moods expect more positive events to occur and less negative ones (“optimistic bias”), whereas the opposite happens for people in negative moods (“pessimistic bias”). The evidence for an effect of mood on cognitive bias is also increasing in animals, suggesting that measures of optimism and pessimism could provide useful indicators of animal welfare. For obvious ethical reasons, serious poor treatments cannot be easily replicated in large mammals in order to study their long-term effects on moods. In this study, we tested the long-term effects (>2 years) of prior poor welfare …

Animal Pleasure And Its Moral Significance, Jonathan Balcombe

Sentience Collection

This paper presents arguments for, and evidence in support of, the important role of pleasure in animals’ lives, and outlines its considerable significance to humankind’s relationship to other animals. In the realms of animal sentience, almost all scholarly discussion revolves around its negative aspects: pain, stress, distress, and suffering. By contrast, the positive aspects of sentience – rewards and pleasures – have been rarely broached by scientists. Yet, evolutionary principles predict that animals, like humans, are motivated to seek rewards, and not merely to avoid pain and suffering. Natural selection favours behaviours that enhance survival and procreation. In the conscious, …

Animal Behaviour, Animal Welfare And The Scientific Study Of Affect, David Fraser

Emotion Collection

Many questions about animal welfare involve the affective states of animals (pain, fear, distress) and people look to science to clarify these issues as a basis for practices, policies and standards. However, the science of the mid twentieth century tended to be silent on matters of animal affect for both philosophical and methodological reasons. Philosophically, under the influence of Positivism many scientists considered that the affective states of animals fall outside the scope of science. Certain methodological features of the research also favoured explanations that did not involve affect. The features included the tendency to rely on abstract, quantitative measures …

How Animals Communicate Quality Of Life: The Qualitative Assessment Of Behaviour, F. Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

The notion ‘quality of life’ (QoL) suggests that welfare in animals encompasses more than just an absence of suffering; it concerns the quality of an animal’s entire relationship with its environment, of how it lives its life. Judgements of such quality are based on the integration of perceived details of how animals behave over time in different contexts. The scientific status of such judgements has long been ambiguous, but in recent decades has begun to be addressed by animal scientists. This paper starts with a brief review of qualitative approaches to the study of animal behaviour, which tend to address …

Aquatic Animals, Cognitive Ethology, And Ethics: Questions About Sentience And Other Troubling Issues That Lurk In Turbid Water, Marc Bekoff

Sentience Collection

In this general, strongly pro-animal, and somewhat utopian and personal essay, I argue that we owe aquatic animals respect and moral consideration just as we owe respect and moral consideration to all other animal beings, regardless of the taxonomic group to which they belong. In many ways it is more difficult to convince some people of our ethical obligations to numerous aquatic animals because we do not identify or empathize with them as we do with animals with whom we are more familiar or to whom we are more closely related, including those species (usually terrestrial) to whom we refer …

The Changing Concept Of Animal Sentience, Ian J. H. Duncan

Sentience Collection

A brief history of the concept of sentience is given. It is pointed out that the idea of sentience, at least in the mammals and birds, was accepted by lay people by the time of the Renaissance and before it was acknowledged by philosophers. It was not until the Enlightenment of the 18th century that philosophers started to accept the notion that animals have feelings. Towards the end of the 19th century, scientists and philosophers had developed a fairly sophisticated concept of sentience. Little consideration was given to sentience by scientists through much of the 20th century due to the …

‘Pleasures’, ‘Pains’ And Animal Welfare: Toward A Natural History Of Affect, D. Fraser, I. J.H. Duncan

Animal Welfare Collection

In hedonic theories of motivation, 'motivational affective states' (MASs) are typically seen as adaptations which motivate certain types of behaviour, especially in situations where a flexible or learned response is more adaptive than a rigid or reflexive one. MASs can be negative (eg unpleasant feelings of hunger or pain) or positive (eg pleasant feelings associated with eating and playing). Hedonic theories often portray negative and positive MASs as opposite ends of a one-dimensional scale.

We suggest that natural selection has favoured negative and positive affect as separate processes to solve two different types of motivational problems. We propose that negative …

Science, Values And Animal Welfare: Exploring The ‘Inextricable Connection’, D. Fraser

Animal Welfare Collection

In conceptualizing animal welfare, it is useful to distinguish among three types of concepts. 'Type l' are single, measurable attributes. 'Type 2' are single attributes that cannot be measured directly but can be estimated by correctly combining various contributing attributes. 'Type 3' are concepts involving multiple attributes which are grouped together because they serve some common function, and whose relative importance cannot be established in an entirely objective way. Individuals who treat animal welfare as a type 1 concept may propose single, objective measures of welfare, such as longevity or levels of stress-related hormones; however, this approach rests on judgements, …

Animal Pain, Bernard E. Rollin

Experimentation Collection

Some time ago, I received a telephone call from an eminent primatologist asking me to give the keynote address at a scientific seminar on animal pain. My first response was to express surprise that they were inviting a philosopher. His reply was remarkable, if only for its rarity among scientists: "The truly interesting and important issues concerning pain in animals are not scientific ones," he said. "They are moral, philosophical, and conceptual ones. And the total failure of science to engage or even acknowledge these issues discredits biomedical science and weakens its conceptual base." I hope to show you that …

Recognition And Alleviation Of Pain In Animals, P. A. Flecknell

Animal Welfare Collection

The pain and distress which animals experience as a consequence of their use by man figures prominently in discussions of animal welfare. Some improvements have been made in animal housing and husbandry practices and it is likely that further progress will be made in this field. In comparison, relatively little attention has been given to the problem of minimizing the pain and distress caused to animals by the various procedures to which they are subjected. The most publicized of these are the wide range of experimental techniques which are undertaken using laboratory animals, but also includes procedures such as castration …

Animal Boredom: Is A Scientific Study Of The Subjective Experiences Of Animals Possible?, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between different meta-scientific frameworks and the science of animal welfare. Animal Boredom 117 During the past few years, I have become more and more convinced that the great difficulty science has in studying subjective experience in its objects, might be related to the denial of any role to subjective experience in the observer as an interpretational guide. Can a quality in the world around us be observed, when this same quality is deliberately excluded from the process of observing?

As a practical example for the discussion described above, the phenomenon …