Environmental enrichment: A GAP analysis
GAP analyses are tools used to inform us about the short-comings of a scientific area or necessities in social–economic problems. In the last 20 years, environmental enrichment as an area of scientific investigation has come of age; this can be clearly seen by the number of publications produced in this area. For example, a search […]
Experimental design: minimizing the number of subjects that suffer may not mean minimizing total suffering
Horses use procedural learning rather than conceptual learning to solve matching to sample
Research into higher cognitive abilities of the horse may be limited by developing the adequate experimental design. In this study four pony mares between 8 and 19 years old were included. Three of them reached the criterion to be tested in a new design of matching to sample using a black circle and a cross […]
Statistical aspects of the analysis of group size effects in confined animals☆
In research on groups of animals housed in an enclosed environment, confounding is inevitably introduced when the factors under study include stocking density and group size. This confounding occurs because of the requirement that the space be limited and hence pen size and its associated physical attributes are altered in tandem with the levels of […]
Pseudoreplication is a pseudoproblem
Pseudoreplication is one of the most influential methodological issues in ecological and animal behavior research today. At its inception, the idea of pseudoreplication highlighted important concerns about the design and analysis of experiments in ecology. The doctrine purported to provide a unified view of experimental design and analysis, wherein precise criteria could be used to […]
Testing for Uni-Dimensional Scaling of Stimuli Used in Preference Experiments
Many animal preference experiments involve test stimuli that have been chosen by the experimenter to represent different strengths of a single attribute. It is assumed that the animals also scale the test stimuli along a single dimension. This paper shows how it is possible to use the ‘Unfolding Technique’ developed by Coombs(1964) to check the […]
Perspective: are animal scientists forgetting the scientific method and the essential role of statistics?
Animal scientists and their funding organisations need to ensure investment in research is maximised by strict adherence to the scientific method and the rigorous design and analysis of experiments. Statisticians should be considered as equals in the research process, engaged from the beginning of research projects and appropriately funded. The importance of experimental design that […]