More exploratory house mice judge an ambiguous situation more negatively

Verjat, Aurélie; Devienne, Paul; Rödel, Heiko G.; Féron, Christophe

doi:10.1007/s10071-020-01414-y

Cited by 12 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…We found that albeit selected genotypes and environments influenced some aspects of anxiety-like behaviours, there was no influence of genotype and/or environment on CJB and spatial learning. Similar discrepancies between CJB and anxiety-like behaviours have already been reported in other studies (Brydges et al, 2012;Destrez et al, 2014;Bethell and Koyama, 2015;Verjat et al, 2021), indicating that CJB and state anxiety as well as trait anxiety represent distinct systems. Consequently, a "pessimistic"…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Only one study investigated repeatability across periods longer than a few days: calves showed moderately repeatable individual differences in CJB across a 25-day interval (R² = 0.41, equivalent to unadjusted repeatability; Lecorps et al, 2018b). Three other studies conducted over a short-term period found moderate to high repeatability estimates (Clegg et al, 2017;Sorato et al, 2018;Verjat et al, 2021). It is expected that repeatabilities over a longer period are smaller than over a short period (Bell et al, 2009).…”

Section: Temporal Stability Of Individual Differences In Cjbmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In light of such findings, the question arises whether decision-making under ambiguity may likewise represent a stable trait. To date, only a few studies addressed this question (Clegg et al, 2017;Lecorps et al, 2018a;Verjat et al, 2021), with just one study systematically investigating longer-term temporal stability of between-individual differences in CJB (Lecorps et al, 2018a, but for a different approach see Rygula et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Once an Optimist, Always an Optimist? Studying Cognitive Judgment Bias in Mice

Bračić¹,

Böhn²,

Krakenberg³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Individuals differ in the way they perceive the world. From human psychological research, it is known that these differences become particularly evident in ambiguous situations: while some individuals interpret ambiguous information pessimistically, others bias their inter-pretations in a more optimistic way, referred to as cognitive judgement bias (CJB). CJBs have also been studied in non-human animals as tools for the assessment of affective states. However, the ecological and evolutionary relevance of CJB has so far been overlooked. We here aimed to transfer the concept of CJB to behavioural ecology. More specifically, we investigated the causes of differences in CJB in mice, focusing on both genetic and environmental factors. Furthermore, we assessed whether individual differences in CJB are repeatable over time, addressing the question whether “optimistic” and “pessimistic” decision styles, respectively, may represent stable traits. Thus, two strains of mice (C57BL/6J and B6D2F1N) were housed in two different environmental conditions: “scarce” or “complex”. While mice living in the “scarce environment” experienced standard housing conditions, those living in the “complex environment” had regular access to a super-enriched “playground”. To calculate the repeatability of “optimistic” and “pessimistic” decision styles, we assessed CJB four times across the course of seven weeks. Moreover, we assessed anxiety-like behaviour to detect potential differences in the effects of genetic or environmental factors on CJB and anxiety. While the selected genotypes and environments influenced some aspects of anxiety-like behaviour, no influence on CJB could be detected, indicating that CJB and anxiety might represent distinct systems. Remarkably, CJB was moderately repeatable, suggesting that decision-making under ambiguity constitutes a relatively stable trait and might even be considered an aspect of animal personality.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Temporal Stability Of Individual Differences In Cjbmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Once an Optimist, Always an Optimist? Studying Cognitive Judgment Bias in Mice

Bračić¹,

Böhn²,

Krakenberg³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…To our knowledge, Experiment 1 represents the first successful construct validation of a mouse judgment bias (JB) task. Although sometimes omitted (5 studies in Table S1), or downplayed [26,75,76], the construct validation of any new indicator of affective state is a crucial step. This is especially important for animal JB tasks, which differ greatly from the unconditioned human tasks that inspired them [21] and which, perhaps as a consequence, can (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cancer blues? A validated judgment bias task suggests pessimism in nude mice with tumors

Resasco

MacLellan

Ayala

et al. 2021

Preprint

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In humans, affective states can bias responses to ambiguous information: a phenomenon termed judgment bias (JB). Judgment biases have great potential for assessing affective states in animals, in both animal welfare and biomedical research. New animal JB tasks require construct validation, but for laboratory mice (Mus musculus), the most common research vertebrate, a valid JB task has proved elusive. Here (Experiment 1), we demonstrate construct validity for a novel mouse JB test: an olfactory Go/Go task in which subjects dig for high- or low-value food rewards. In C57BL/6 and Balb/c mice faced with ambiguous cues, latencies to dig were sensitive to high/low welfare housing, environmentally-enriched animals responding with relative optimism through shorter latencies. Illustrating the versatility of a validated JB task across fields of research, it further allowed us to test hypotheses about the mood-altering effects of cancer (Experiment 2). Male nude mice bearing subcutaneous lung adenocarcinomas responded more pessimistically than healthy controls to ambiguous cues. Similar effects were not seen in females, however. To our knowledge, this is the first validation of a mouse JB task and the first demonstration of pessimism in tumor-bearing animals. This task, especially if refined to improve its sensitivity, thus has great potential for investigating mouse welfare, the links between affective state and disease, depression-like states in animals, and hypotheses regarding the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie affect-mediated biases in judgment.

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“…Individual differences in personality may influence immunity strength [16], the performance of abnormal or stereotypic behaviors [17,18], and the expression of pain [19]. New research suggests that an animal's personality can also influence the way in which stimuli are processed and evaluated; in other words, personality can shape judgement biases [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. For example, proactive (exploratory and bold) grower pigs are more likely to display optimistic judgement biases than reactive (non-exploratory and cautious) grower pigs [20], dogs which receive higher traits scores for sociability, excitability and non-social-fear display more optimistic judgement biases than more fearful, less social dogs [21], and, neurotic orange-winged amazon parrots show a greater attention bias for environmental stimuli [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Judgement bias of group housed gestating sows predicted by behavioral traits, but not physical measures of welfare

Horback

Parsons

2022

PLoS ONE

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Judgement bias testing has emerged as a potential tool for assessing affective states in animals. Researchers infer an animal’s affective state based on an animal’s response to an ambiguous stimulus that is intermediate to both the rewarded and punished conditioned stimuli. Animals can be classified as “optimistic” or having a positive affective state if the animal displays behaviors that suggest an increased expectation of reward in the face of ambiguous stimuli. Alternatively, animals can be classified “pessimistic” or having a negative affective state if the animal displays behaviors that suggest an increased expectation of punishment in the face of ambiguous stimuli. Recent reports in multiple species question what factors influence performance in judgement bias testing, and which may allow for erroneous conclusions regarding individual affective state. In order to better understand this concern, 25 female swine were subjected to behavioral assessments at critical rearing stages to determine response variability. These same individuals were then assessed for physical measures of welfare and judgement bias using the “go/no-go” task as breeding adults. Sows which were more aggressive approached the ambiguous, but not the positive, stimulus significantly faster than others. Both optimistic and pessimistic biases were observed despite all sows living in enriched housing, and, sows with more positive physical welfare measures (fewer skin lesions and healthy body condition) did not exhibit more optimistic judgement biases. Our data demonstrate that behavior traits, such as aggressiveness, can affect a sow’s performance in a judgement bias test, while measures of physical health did not. We suggest that individual differences in behavior (e.g., bold-aggressive behavioral syndrome, or, proactive coping style) generate different emotional responses and can contribute to the animal’s overall affective state more so than physical ailment. Our findings highlight the complexity of how different factors impact an animal’s overall affective state and support the need for complementary measures in future JBT studies, including personality assessment.

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More exploratory house mice judge an ambiguous situation more negatively

Cited by 12 publications

References 80 publications

Once an Optimist, Always an Optimist? Studying Cognitive Judgment Bias in Mice

Once an Optimist, Always an Optimist? Studying Cognitive Judgment Bias in Mice

Cancer blues? A validated judgment bias task suggests pessimism in nude mice with tumors

Judgement bias of group housed gestating sows predicted by behavioral traits, but not physical measures of welfare

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