On the Way to Assess Emotions in Animals: Do Lambs (Ovis aries) Evaluate an Event Through Its Suddenness, Novelty, or Unpredictability?

Désiré, Lara; Veissier, Isabelle; Desprès, Gérard; Boissy, Alain

doi:10.1037/0735-7036.118.4.363

Cited by 106 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…For two days, lambs of the same home pen were allowed to explore the test arena freely in pairs for 180 s, with concentrate and barley offered ad libitum in the bucket. For the next 5 days, each lamb was led individually to the test arena once a day and stayed 75 s. Lambs that ate during the last 2 days of habituation were tested on two successive already-standardized fear-eliciting tests: novelty and suddenness (Dé siré et al, 2004). Each lamb was tested twice in each test situation, that is, before and after the 6-week treatment period.…”

Section: Fear Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long-term exposure to unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events alters fearfulness in sheep

Destrez

Deiss

Leterrier

et al. 2013

Animal

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Numerous studies have investigated the emotional effects of various acute, potentially alarming events in animals, but little is known about how an accumulation of emotional experiences affects fearfulness. Fearfulness is a temperament trait that characterizes the propensity of an individual to be frightened by a variety of alarming events. The aim of this study was to investigate a putative alteration of fearfulness in sheep repeatedly exposed to various aversive events. Forty-eight 5-month-old female lambs were used. Over a period of 6 weeks, 24 of them (treated group) were exposed daily to various unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events related to predatory cues, social context and negative handling that can occur under farming conditions. The other 24 lambs (control group) were housed in standard farming conditions (predictable food distribution and group handling). Fearfulness (behavioural and physiological responses) was assessed before and after the treatment period by subjecting the lambs to three standardized tests: individual exposure to suddenness and then to novelty in a test arena, and group exposure to a motionless human in the home pen. As biomarkers of stress, leukocyte counts, heart rate and cortisol concentrations were measured in the lambs in their home pens. Before the treatment, the emotional responses of the groups did not differ. After the treatment, treated lambs approached the human less often, had less contact with the novel object and vocalized more than controls in individual tests, suggesting that long-term exposure to unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events increases subsequent fearfulness in sheep. In addition, treated lambs had lower leukocyte counts, heart rate and cortisol levels, pointing to a chronic stress state. These findings suggest that increased fearfulness may be used as a sign of chronic stress in farm animals.

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Section: Fear Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following an aversive event, heart rate is a possible indicator of emotional response in domestic sheep (Palestrini et al, 1998;Dé siré et al, 2004). During the novelty and suddenness tests, we recorded cardiac activity for a 75-s period using a Polar Vantage NV system (Polar, Anglet, France).…”

Section: Equipment and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term exposure to unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events alters fearfulness in sheep

Destrez

Deiss

Leterrier

et al. 2013

Animal

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“…These studies allow to further predict which individuals are likely to be more reactive to slaughter procedures and pave the way to study the role of genetic background and history in the construction of the reactivity profile. Finally, analytic Terlouw, Arnould, Auperin, Berri, Le Bihan-Duval, Deiss, Lefè vre, Lensink and Mounier behavioural and physiological approaches derived from human cognitive psychology and applied to the study of emotional responses in sheep have determined that in farm animals and humans, similar cognitive processes may underlie emotional experience (Désiré et al, 2004;Greiveldinger et al, 2007). Such studies may be used to identify the elementary criteria responsible for the stress responses at slaughter, such as the discrepancy between expectation and reality and lack of controllability or predictability.…”

Section: Concluding Remarks and Possible Aims For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Animal welfare is considered a physical and mental state related to the absence of negative emotions (Dawkins, 1990;Duncan, 1996) and probably to the presence of positive emotions (Boissy et al, 2007). The term of stress refers to the behavioural, physiological and emotional status of the animal confronted with a situation that it perceives as threatening with respect to the correct functioning of its bodily or mental state (Désiré et al, 2004;Terlouw, 2005). Much effort has been made to reduce stress, and thus to improve animal welfare during the rearing period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-slaughter conditions, animal stress and welfare: current status and possible future research

Terlouw

Arnould

Aupérin³

et al. 2008

Animal

160

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The present paper describes the main procedures used to slaughter fowl, pigs, calves and adult cattle, sheep, and farmed fish, starting on the farm and ending with the death of the animal at the abattoir. It reviews the currently known causes of stress, indicated by behavioural and physiological measurements on the animal level, and by post-mortem muscle metabolism. During the pre-slaughter period, psychological stress is due to changes of environment, social disturbances and handling, and physical stress is due to food deprivation, climatic conditions, fatigue, and sometimes pain. The exact causes of stress depend, however, on the characteristics of each species, including the rearing system. For fowl, bird catching and crating, duration and climatic conditions of transport and of lairage and shackling are the main known pre-slaughter stress factors. For pigs, stress is caused by fighting during mixing of pens, loading and unloading conditions, and introduction in the restrainer. Handling and novelty of the situation contribute to the stress reactions. For veal calves and adult cattle, disruption of the social group, handling, loading and sometimes unloading conditions, fatigue, novelty of the situation and for calves mixing with unfamiliar animals are known stress factors. Gathering and yarding of extensively reared lambs and sheep causes stress, particularly when shepherd dogs are used. Subsequent transport may induce fatigue, especially if sheep are commercialised through auctions or markets. In farmed fish, stress is predominantly related to environmental aspects such as temperature, oxygen, cleanliness of the water and, to a certain extent, stocking density and removal of the fish from the water. If transport and lairage conditions are good and their durations not too long, they may allow pigs, calves and adult cattle, sheep, and fish to rest. For certain species, it was shown that genetic origin and earlier experience influence reactions to the slaughter procedure. Stunning techniques used depend on the species. Pigs and fowl are mostly electrically or gas-stunned, while most adult cattle are stunned with a captive bolt pistol. Calves and sheep may be electrically stunned or with a captive bolt pistol. Various stunning methods exist for the different farmed fish species. Potential causes of stress associated with the different stunning procedures are discussed. The paper addresses further consequences for meat quality and possible itineraries for future research. For all species, and most urgently for fish, more knowledge is needed on stunning and killing techniques, including gas-stunning techniques, to protect welfare.

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“…These studies related increased locomotor activity and restlessness behaviour with negative stimuli. Furthermore, increased ear movements and specific ear postures were found with negative situations [13,14,16] and possibly mediated by the animals' attention [11,14,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Housing conditions influence cortical and behavioural reactions of sheep in response to videos showing social interactions of different valence

Vögeli¹,

Wolf²,

Wechsler

et al. 2015

Behavioural Brain Research

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Mood, as a long-term affective state, is thought to modulate short-term emotional reactions in animals, but the details of this interplay have hardly been investigated experimentally. Apart from a basic interest in this affective system, mood is likely to have an important impact on animal welfare, as bad mood may taint all emotional experience. In the present study about mood -emotion interaction, 29 sheep were kept under predictable, stimulus-rich or unpredictable, stimulus-poor housing conditions, to induce different mood states. In an experiment, the animals were confronted with video sequences of social interactions of conspecifics showing agonistic interactions, ruminating or tolerantly co-feeding as stimuli of different valences. Emotional reactions were assessed by measuring frontal brain activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy and by recording behavioral reactions. Attentiveness of the sheep decreased from videos showing agonistic interactions toruminating sheep to those displaying co-feeding sheep. Seeing agonistic interactions was also associated with a deactivation of the frontal cortex, specifically in animals living under predictable, stimulus-rich housing conditions. These sheep generally showed less attentiveness and locomotor activity and they had their ears in a forward position less often and in a backward position more often than the sheep from the unpredictable, stimulus-poor conditions. Housing conditions influenced how the sheep behaved, which can either be thought to be mediated by mood or by the animals' previous experience with stimulusrichness in their housing conditions. Frontal cortical activity may not depend on valence only, but also on the perceptual channel through which the stimuli were perceived.

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On the Way to Assess Emotions in Animals: Do Lambs (Ovis aries) Evaluate an Event Through Its Suddenness, Novelty, or Unpredictability?

Cited by 106 publications

References 33 publications

Long-term exposure to unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events alters fearfulness in sheep

Long-term exposure to unpredictable and uncontrollable aversive events alters fearfulness in sheep

Pre-slaughter conditions, animal stress and welfare: current status and possible future research

Housing conditions influence cortical and behavioural reactions of sheep in response to videos showing social interactions of different valence

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