Judgement bias in goats (Capra hircus): investigating the effects of human grooming

• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2485
• Publication Date: 2016-10-13T08:05:05Z
• Authors: Luigi Baciadonna; Christian Nawroth; Alan G. McElligott
• Keywords: Capra hircus; Judgement

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 affective state in goats. We tested two groups of goats and trained them discriminate between rewarded non-rewarded location over nine training days. During training, the experimental group (n = 9) was gently groomed brushing heads backs for five min 11 days (nine days, plus testing total time 55 min). control 10) did not experience any direct with experimenter, but kept unconstrained next him same period time. After successful completion responses (latency time) reach ambiguous locations situated reference (i.e., rewarded/non-rewarded) were compared testing. There effect after animals had been groomed. second experiment, 10 investigate whether grooming changes physiological activation heart rate variability). Heart increased when baseline condition, receive contact experimenter. Also, subjects move away from suggesting that positively accepted. The very good care regular contacts received humans at study site could potentially account results obtained. Good husbandry outcomes are influenced animals' perception events is based current circumstances, past experiences individual variables. Taking into characteristics identifying effective strategies induce emotions increase understanding reliability using biases paradigms promote animal welfare.