Studying Animal Feelings: Integrating Sentience Research and Welfare Science
The goal of this article is to bring together two fields of research — animal sentience research and animal welfare science — with the aim of advancing our understanding of animal emotions, especially their subjectively experienced or ‘felt’ component (feelings). While these two research areas share a common interest in animal feelings, they have had […]
The Neurobiology of Behavior and Its Applicability for Animal Welfare: A Review
Understanding the foundations of the neurobiology of behavior and well-being can help us better achieve animal welfare. Behavior is the expression of several physiological, endocrine, motor and emotional responses that are coordinated by the central nervous system from the processing of internal and external stimuli. In mammals, seven basic emotional systems have been described that […]
A Comparative Perspective on Three Primate Species’ Responses to a Pictorial Emotional Stroop Task
The Stroop effect describes interference in cognitive processing due to competing cognitive demands. Presenting emotionally laden stimuli creates similar Stroop-like effects that result from participants’ attention being drawn to distractor stimuli. Here, we adapted the methods of a pictorial Stroop study for use with chimpanzees (N = 6), gorillas (N = 7), and Japanese macaques […]
Vocalisations in Farm Animals: a Step Towards Positive Welfare Assessment
Public concern for farm animal welfare is increasing. Animal welfare is defined as the balance of positive and negative emotions, where positive emotions are key to a good animal life. Emotion is defined as an experience that varies in valence and arousal. Many methods developed to identify positive emotions in animals involve disadvantages, for example, […]
Cardiac activity and salivary cortisol concentration of leisure horses in response to the presence of an audience in the arena
The aim of this study was to determine the influence of different forms of an audience’s behavior on the heart work parameters and salivary cortisol level of leisure horses during work. Twelve horses were studied at rest, during standardized work, and at recovery. There was no audience in the arena in the control variant, whereas […]
Behavioral Evidence For The Cutaneous Expression Of Emotion In A Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
Self-directed behaviors (SDBs) are behavioral indicators of stress, but have received relatively little experimental scrutiny. The present study reports the distribution of SDBs in a 14-year-old male chimpanzee in relation to performance on a matching-to-sample task of varying difficulty. The rate of rubbing behaviors (self-touching with the hand without any raking motion of the fingernails) […]
Using The Observer for Animal Behavior Research: Stress and emotions in animals
Animals respond to inputs from their inner and outer environment with physiological and behavioral changes. They try to maintain a stable state by reacting to disturbances of the inner and outer world: their Umwelt. Under natural conditions an animal predicts and controls its Umwelt by feeding, moving, resting, socializing, communicating, etc. It has the freedom […]
The neurobiology of positive emotions
Compared to the study of negative emotions such as fear, the neurobiology of positive emotional processes and the associated positive affect (PA) states has only recently received scientific attention. Biological theories conceptualize PA as being related to (i) signals indicating that bodies are returning to equilibrium among those studying homeostasis, (ii) utility estimation among those […]
Stress and welfare: Two complementary concepts that are intrinsically related to the animal’s point of view
The closely associated concepts of welfare and stress may be considered as opposites since welfare cannot be achieved under stress and vice versa. Stress was first considered as an unspecific response to any challenge taxing the organism’s resources where the HPA axis plays a central role [Selye H. A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents. […]
A note on reward-related behaviour and emotional expressions in farmed silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes)–Basis for a novel tool to study animal welfare
The present study aimed to investigate the profile and quantitative aspects of reward-related behaviour and emotional expressions during anticipation of positive (predictable or various unpredictable) or negative (predictable) rewards in a Pavlovian trace conditioning paradigm in farmed silver foxes. When anticipating a positive reward, silver foxes were more active, performed more stereotypical behaviour, had more […]