This chapter discusses the associative learning processes, memory processes, including the special example of object permanence, discrimination, generalization and category formation, social cognitive abilities and the relationship between cognition and emotion in domestic animals, and how an understanding of animal cognition influences attitudes towards and understanding of animal welfare.
Recent developments in the study of animal cognition and emotion have resulted in the ‘judgement bias’ model of animal welfare. Judgement biases describe the way in which changes in affective state are characterized by changes in information processing. In humans, anxiety and depression are characterized by increased expectation of negative events and negative interpretation of ambiguous information. Positive wellbeing is associated with enhanced expectation of positive outcomes and more positive interpretation of ambiguous information. Mood-congruent judgement biases for ambiguous information have been demonstrated in a range of animal species, with large variation in the way tests are administered and in the robustness of analyses. We highlight and address some issues using a laboratory species not previously tested: the Syrian hamster (
Mesocricetus auratus
). Hamsters were tested using a spatial judgement go/no-go task in enriched and unenriched housing. We included a number of controls and additional behavioural tests and applied a robust analytical approach using linear mixed effects models. Hamsters approached the ambiguous cues significantly more often when enriched than unenriched. There was no effect of enrichment on responses to the middle cue. We discuss these findings in light of mechanisms underlying processing cues to reward, punishment and true ambiguity, and the implications for the welfare of laboratory hamsters.
This affordable single-volume work is the first book by Dr. Ken Cheng of McQuarie University, who has published many journal articles on animal behavior on a variety of species in the past thirty years. Cheng’s experience as an accomplished researcher and professor is evident in his readable, well-researched, and entertaining writing. How Animals Think and Feel features nine chapters that focus on topics related to animal cognition and emotions. In addition, there are nine case studies of animals that reflect a diverse representation of animals, from jumping spiders to apes, with a concluding chapter putting human cognition and emotion into the context of animal behavior.
Abstract
Hoerl & McCormack argue that animals cannot represent past situations and subsume animals’ memory-like representations within a model of the world. I suggest calling these memory-like representations as what they are without beating around the bush. I refer to them as event memories and explain how they are different from episodic memory and how they can guide action in animal cognition.
Happy hamsters? Enrichment induces positive judgement bias for mildly (but not truly) ambiguous cues to reward and punishment in
Mesocricetus auratus