Assessing and Enhancing the Welfare of Animals with Equivocal and Reliable Cues
The actions of human caretakers strongly influence animals living under human care. Here, we consider how intentional and unintentional signals provided by caretakers can inform our assessment of animals’ well-being as well as help to support it. Our aim is to assist in further developing techniques to learn animals’ affective state from their behavior and […]
Sheep exhibit a positive judgement bias and stress-induced hyperthermia following shearing
The detection of judgement biases may improve welfare evaluations by measuring the cognitive component, particularly the valence, of affective states. Judgement biases have been successfully demonstrated in various laboratory animals but only recently in sheep. Chronic stressors have been found to induce a negative judgement bias and a short-term stressor (restraint and isolation stress) a […]
Cross sectional study comparing behavioural, cognitive and physiological indicators of welfare between short and long term kennelled domestic dogs
Affective states are an integral part of animal welfare but are difficult to assess using traditional welfare measurements. It has previously been shown that kennelled dogs commonly show indications of poor welfare. The aim of this study was to compare welfare of short-term (ST) and long-term (LT) kennel housed rehoming centre dogs using a range […]
The A to Z of statistics for testing cognitive judgement bias
No abstract.
Acute stress enhances sensitivity to a highly attractive food reward without affecting judgement bias in laying hens
Affective states can be evaluated by assessing shifts in the animal’s expectation of a positive and negative outcome in response to ambiguous cues, also known as judgement bias (JB). The aim of this study was to use a JB methodology, using a go/go type of task where animals are required to make an active choice, […]
A “How-To” Guide for Designing Judgment Bias Studies to Assess Captive Animal Welfare
Robust methods to assess nonhuman animal emotion are essential for ensuring good welfare in captivity. Cognitive bias measures such as the judgment bias task have recently emerged as promising tools to assess animal emotion. The simple design and objective response measures make judgment bias tasks suitable for use across species and contexts. In reviewing 64 […]
Measurement of cognitive bias and cortisol levels to evaluate the effects of space restriction on captive collared peccary (Mammalia, Tayassuidae)
We use the judgement-bias paradigm to evaluate whether space restriction in metabolism pens affects the emotional state of collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) during a nutritional experiment. We trained individual adult males to ‘go’ to a specific location within 30 s when a positive auditory cue (whistle; CS+) was given in order to receive cassava root […]
Judgement bias in goats (Capra hircus): investigating the effects of human grooming
Animal emotional states can be investigated by evaluating their impact on cognitive processes. In this study, we used a judgement bias paradigm to determine if short-term positive human-animal interaction (grooming) induced a positive affective state in goats. We tested two groups of goats and trained them to discriminate between a rewarded and a non-rewarded location […]