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 […]
Abstraction, cruelty and other aspects of animal play (exemplified by the playfulness of Muki and Maluca)
Play behaviour is notorious for constituting a much debated, yet little clarified field of research. In this article, attempts are made to reach conclusions on the relation between human play and the play of other animals (especially cat play), as well as on the very character of play. The concept of Umwelt is reviewed, as […]
Understanding the perceptual world of horses
From the viewpoint of experimental psychology, there are two problems with our current knowledge of equine perception. The first is that the behavioral and neurophysiological research in this area has enormous gaps, reflecting that this animal is not a convenient laboratory subject. The second is that the horse, having been a close companion to humans […]