Using vocalisations and cognitive bias to assess emotions, temperament and welfare in domestic goats (Capra hircus)

• Forschungsstelle: BLV
• Projektnummer: 2.11.03
• Projekttitel Englisch: Using vocalisations and cognitive bias to assess emotions, temperament and welfare in domestic goats (Capra hircus)

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Animal welfare, cognitive bias, emotions, livestock, temperament, vocalisations

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

This research will develop convenient tools for assessing goat emotions, temperament and welfare. First, we propose to investigate non-invasive physiological, behavioural and vocal markers of negative and positive emotions. To this aim, we will test the hypothesis that physiological measures, behavioural measures and acoustic parameters of vocalisations vary between situations known to induce negative or positive states. We will also carry out playback experiments of affect-related calls to find out if goats perceive differences between vocalisations indicating emotions of opposite valence. Long-term emotional states will be assessed using an affect-induced judgement bias. We will compare the responses of individuals known to have been in a long-term negative emotional state (poor welfare) and those known to be in a long-term positive emotional state (good welfare), to intermediate spatial locations situated between food rewarded and food unrewarded locations. We hypothesize that goats in negative emotional states will show decreased anticipation of positive events or increased anticipation of negative events. In a second step, we will measure behavioural and vocal indicators of several temperament traits (exploration/avoidance, sociability and aggressiveness). To this aim, each trait will be assessed by measuring individual consistency across situation and across time.

Projektziele (Englisch)

The proposed research aims to develop convenient and non-invasive tools to assess emotions and temperament in the domestic goat, in order to improve welfare

 

. Firstly, we will determine physiological, behavioural and vocal markers of positive and negative emotions. We will apply a cognitive bias approach to our model species in order to measure long-term emotional traits.

 

Secondly, we will measure several temperament traits and investigate vocal markers of temperament. The three main aims and related hypotheses of our research are:

 

 

 

Aim 1.

 

Assess physiological, behavioural and vocal indicators of negative versus positive emotions:

 

 

 

 We will test the hypothesis that physiological measures, behavioural measures and acoustic parameters of vocalisations vary between a situation known to induce a negative state and a situation known to induce a positive state. We will then carry out playback experiments of affectrelated calls to find out if goats perceive differences between calls indicating emotions of opposite valence.

 

 

 

 

Assess physiological, behavioural and vocal indicators of negative versus positive emotions:  We will test the hypothesis that physiological measures, behavioural measures and acoustic parameters of vocalisations vary between a situation known to induce a negative state and a situation known to induce a positive state. We will then carry out playback experiments of affectrelated calls to find out if goats perceive differences between calls indicating emotions of opposite valence.

 Aim 2. Measure long-term emotional traits using affect-induced judgement bias: we will set up an experiment to test affect-induced judgement bias. We predict that individual background state will influence responses to intermediate spatial locations situated between a rewarded and an unrewarded location. We hypothesise that goats in a negative emotional state will show decreased anticipation of positive events (depression) or increased anticipation of negative events (anxiety33).

 

 

 

 Aim 3. Assess behavioural and vocal indicators of temperament traits: we will test the hypothesis that temperament traits (exploration/avoidance, sociability and aggressiveness) are associated with particular patterns of behavioural responses and parameters of vocalisations. We hypothesise that individuals will be consistent in their behavioural responses, thus showing the existence of these temperament traits. We also predict that the temperament of a given individual will influence the acoustic structure of its vocalisations.

Zugehörige Dokumente

• Datenblatt [PDF] 45 kB

Umsetzung und Anwendungen (Deutsch)

UMS 2012:
es handelte sich um einen Beitrag (Bezahlung von Feldspesen): Eine direkter Umsetzung ist schwierig, jedoch gibt es Parallelen in der Methodik zum Projekt von Lorenz Gygax und Zusammenarbeit wurde gefördert. Status: erledigt. (mvo)

Publikationen / Ergebnisse (Englisch)

Briefer, E. F.; McElligott A.G. (2013) Rescued goats at a sanctuary display positive mood afterformer neglect. Applied Animal Behaviour Science: 1-11.

Baciadonna et al. (2013), Goats favour personal over social information in an experimental foraging task. PeerJ
1: e172; DOI 10.7717/peerj. 172

Briefer, E. F.; Tettamanti, F.; McElligott, A.G. (2015) Emotions in goats: mapping physiological, behavioural and vocal profiles: Animal Behaviour 99, 131-143

Publications, posters and presentations

Briefer, E.F., McElligott, A.G. (Submitted) Long-term effects of poor welfare on goat mood revealed by a judgement bias experiment.

Briefer, E.F. (2012) Vocal expression of emotions in mammals: mechanisms of production and evidence. Journal of Zoology 188, 1-20.

Briefer, E.F., McElligott, A.G. (2012) Goat calls differ according to emotional arousal and valence. 46th Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology, Vienna, Austria. Talk

Briefer, E.F. (2012) Deciphering goat vocalizations: cues to physical characteristics and emotional states.  Roehampton University. Invited talk and Neurobiology, behaviour and cognition seminars, Queen Mary University of London. Invited talk

Briefer, E.F. (2012) Using vocalizations to measure emotions and assess animal welfare. Vetsuisse-Fakultät, Universität Bern, Bern. Invited talk

Briefer, E.F. (2011) Using vocalisations to measure emotions and assess animal welfare. Federal Veterinary Office, Agroscope Reckenholz-Taenikon Research Station ART, Taenikon, Switzerland. Invited talk

 

Zugehörige Dokumente

• 2.11.03 Briefer DB.pdf [PDF] 72 kB
• 2.11.03 Briefer et al. Emotions goats ANBE15.pdf [PDF] 667 kB
• 2.11.03 Briefer-McElligott-JudgementBiasGoats.pdf [PDF] 703 kB
• Baciadonna-etal-GoatFavourPersonalInfo-PeerJ13.pdf [PDF] 963 kB
• Journal of Zoology [PDF] 351 kB

URL-Adressen (Deutsch)

2.11.03 Briefer vocalisation émotion chèvres LONDON (063-507/3/13)