Pigs are among the most intelligent mammals on the planet; as such, they display a wide range of complex behaviors, like being able to play video games, understanding human instructions and even a pig species has been observed using tools.
Similar to other highly intelligent mammals, pigs demonstrate an understanding of symbolic language. In one study, pigs showed they could grasp gestures and verbal symbols representing objects (frisbee, ball, and dumbbell) as well as actions (sit, fetch, and jump). They learned more than objects and verbs, they also understood phrases, such as "fetch the frisbee," and successfully performed the requested tasks and as good as dolphins. [1]
In the Middle Ages pigs were often held in communal corrals. Each pig owner had a horn tuned to a different pitch so that pigs were able to identify the call of the owner and come back. [2]
Pigs can figure where human attention is focused and much like dogs, pass the human pointing test. The pointing test is notoriously difficult as even great apes struggle, with dogs outperforming great apes. [1]
Studies show pigs feel emotional states from other pigs, a phenomenon called emotional contagion. [1] [3] In response to negative feelings in other pigs, they're able to provide social support. [3] Like dogs, pigs seek comfort from pet owners when stressed. [4] [5]
Lulu, a pet potbellied pig, was motivated to seek help when her owner suffered a heart attack. The pig got outside the house and occupied the road, then went back to the house, repeating this behavior until a car stopped and Lulu led the driver to her owner, who was finally saved. [6] [7] [8]
A study discovered that piglets exhibit unique traits in at least three areas: aggression, sociability, and exploration; similar to the human personality dimensions of agreeableness, extraversion, and openness. [1] Most farmers recognize in pigs traits such as intelligence, stubbornness, friendliness and gluttony. [9]
Chimpanzees and pigs both understand a joystick can be used to direct a pointer in a screen. [10] According to one study, pigs outperformed dogs at directing the pointer towards a target. [1]
Pigs can use their problem solving skills to free other pigs from cage traps. [11] [12] [13]
The mirror test is one way to observe self-aware behaviors in animals. When pigs are presented a mirror, they do repetitive movements, a behavior called contingency checking. Moreover, they're able to locate food using the mirror. [1]
Pigs can remember which humans and pigs they like and act accordingly. They differentiate humans, even people dressed alike, by recognizing human faces, and can also tell apart humans by their olfaction and hearing. [1] Pigs have shown to fear stranger humans but lose the fear after the person played with the pigs with toys. [14]
Pigs can remember and selectively return to areas with more food, showing they have spatial memory and understanding of quantities. [1]
In a study, pigs were given a choice between two crates, each linked to a different duration of confinement. The pigs consistently favored the crate associated with the shorter confinement, indicating that they could use their previous experience on time perception to predict future outcomes. [1]
Pigs can use their knowledge of other pig perspectives to their own advantage and even to influence others' behavior. [1] In one study, pigs used their theory of mind skills to mislead other pigs away from food rewards. [1] Like corvids and primates, pigs are capable of tactical deception. [15] [16] Pigs can figure where humans are looking and pointing. [1]
An endangered pig species, Sus cebifrons, has been observed to use different tools to dig and to use hard surfaces to break sticks. [17]
Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, and Wallace Craig. The modern discipline of ethology is generally considered to have begun during the 1930s with the work of the Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and the Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the three winners of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Ethology combines laboratory and field science, with a strong relation to neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology.
Comparative psychology is the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. The phrase comparative psychology may be employed in either a narrow or a broad meaning. In its narrow meaning, it refers to the study of the similarities and differences in the psychology and behavior of different species. In a broader meaning, comparative psychology includes comparisons between different biological and socio-cultural groups, such as species, sexes, developmental stages, ages, and ethnicities. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods and explores the behavior of many different species, from insects to primates.
Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals, including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology; the alternative name cognitive ethology is sometimes used. Many behaviors associated with the term animal intelligence are also subsumed within animal cognition.
Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives.
Dog intelligence or dog cognition is the process in dogs of acquiring information and conceptual skills, and storing them in memory, retrieving, combining and comparing them, and using them in new situations.
The dog is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was domesticated from an extinct population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene, over 14,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers, prior to the development of agriculture. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans. Experts estimate that due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.
Emotion is defined as any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content. The existence and nature of emotions in non-human animals are believed to be correlated with those of humans and to have evolved from the same mechanisms. Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to write about the subject, and his observational approach has since developed into a more robust, hypothesis-driven, scientific approach. Cognitive bias tests and learned helplessness models have shown feelings of optimism and pessimism in a wide range of species, including rats, dogs, cats, rhesus macaques, sheep, chicks, starlings, pigs, and honeybees. Jaak Panksepp played a large role in the study of animal emotion, basing his research on the neurological aspect. Mentioning seven core emotional feelings reflected through a variety of neuro-dynamic limbic emotional action systems, including seeking, fear, rage, lust, care, panic and play. Through brain stimulation and pharmacological challenges, such emotional responses can be effectively monitored.
Behavioral enrichment is an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological well-being. Enrichment can either be active or passive, depending on whether it requires direct contact between the animal and the enrichment. A variety of enrichment techniques are used to create desired outcomes similar to an animal's individual and species' history. Each of the techniques used is intended to stimulate the animal's senses similarly to how they would be activated in the wild. Provided enrichment may be seen in the form of auditory, olfactory, habitat factors, food, research projects, training, and objects.
Dog behavior is the internally coordinated responses of individuals or groups of domestic dogs to internal and external stimuli. It has been shaped by millennia of contact with humans and their lifestyles. As a result of this physical and social evolution, dogs have acquired the ability to understand and communicate with humans. Behavioral scientists have uncovered a wide range of social-cognitive abilities in domestic dogs.
Mate choice is one of the primary mechanisms under which evolution can occur. It is characterized by a "selective response by animals to particular stimuli" which can be observed as behavior. In other words, before an animal engages with a potential mate, they first evaluate various aspects of that mate which are indicative of quality—such as the resources or phenotypes they have—and evaluate whether or not those particular trait(s) are somehow beneficial to them. The evaluation will then incur a response of some sort.
Nesting behavior refers to an instinct in animals during reproduction to prepare a place with optimal conditions for offspring. The nesting place provides protection against predators and competitors that mean to exploit or kill offspring. It also provides protection against the physical environment.
Socialization of animals is the process of training animals so that they can be kept in close relationship to humans.
The human–canine bond is rooted in the domestication of the dog, which began occurring through their long-term association with hunter-gatherers more than 30,000–40,000 years ago. The earliest known relationship between dogs and humans is attested by the 1914 discovery of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog, who was buried alongside two humans in modern-day Oberkassel, Germany, approximately 15,000 years ago. For centuries, the phrase "man's best friend" has commonly been used to refer to dogs, as they were the first species and the only large carnivore to have been domesticated. This companionship is most evident in Western countries, such as the United States, where 44% of households were found to be keeping at least one dog as a pet.
Cognitive bias in animals is a pattern of deviation in judgment, whereby inferences about other animals and situations may be affected by irrelevant information or emotional states. It is sometimes said that animals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input. In humans, for example, an optimistic or pessimistic bias might affect one's answer to the question "Is the glass half empty or half full?"
Empathy in chickens is the ability of a chicken to understand and share the feelings of another chicken. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) Animal Welfare Initiative defines and recognizes that "...hens possess a fundamental capacity to empathise..." These empathetic responses in animals are well documented and are usually discussed along with issues related to cognition. The difference between animal cognition and animal emotion is recognized by ethicists. The specific emotional attribute of empathy in chickens has not been only investigated in terms of its existence but it has applications that have resulted in the designed reduction of stress in farm-raised poultry.
Theory of mind in animals is an extension to non-human animals of the philosophical and psychological concept of theory of mind (ToM), sometimes known as mentalisation or mind-reading. It involves an inquiry into whether non-human animals have the ability to attribute mental states to themselves and others, including recognition that others have mental states that are different from their own. To investigate this issue experimentally, researchers place non-human animals in situations where their resulting behavior can be interpreted as supporting ToM or not.
Pollutant-induced abnormal behaviour refers to the abnormal behaviour induced by pollutants. Chemicals released into the natural environment by humans impact the behaviour of a wide variety of animals. The main culprits are endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which mimic, block, or interfere with animal hormones. A new research field, integrative behavioural ecotoxicology, is emerging. However, chemical pollutants are not the only anthropogenic offenders. Noise and light pollution also induce abnormal behaviour.
The evolution of cognition is the process by which life on Earth has gone from organisms with little to no cognitive function to a greatly varying display of cognitive function that we see in organisms today. Animal cognition is largely studied by observing behavior, which makes studying extinct species difficult. The definition of cognition varies by discipline; psychologists tend define cognition by human behaviors, while ethologists have widely varying definitions. Ethological definitions of cognition range from only considering cognition in animals to be behaviors exhibited in humans, while others consider anything action involving a nervous system to be cognitive.
Insect cognition describes the mental capacities and study of those capacities in insects. The field developed from comparative psychology where early studies focused more on animal behavior. Researchers have examined insect cognition in bees, fruit flies, and wasps.
H. Jane Brockmann is an emeritus professor at the University of Florida known for her research on animal behavior, especially in the mating and nesting behavior of horseshoe crabs. In 2008, she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.