Working and reference memory of pigs in the spatial holeboard discrimination task

Area of Science:

• Animal Cognition
• Comparative Psychology
• Behavioral Neuroscience

Background:

• Spatial learning and memory are crucial for survival in many species.
• The impact of social stress on cognitive performance in pigs requires further investigation.
• Understanding porcine cognitive abilities can inform animal welfare and management practices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess pigs' ability to learn a complex spatial discrimination task.
• To determine if social mixing stress influences performance in this task.
• To evaluate working and reference memory in pigs.

Main Methods:

• Pigs were trained on a 16-hole spatial holeboard task with 4 baited holes.
• Performance was measured by the number of re-visits to baited and unbaited holes.
• A social mixing stressor was introduced to assess its effect on task performance.

Main Results:

• Pigs demonstrated rapid learning, significantly reducing re-visits to baited holes (working memory).
• Pigs also efficiently reduced re-visits to unbaited holes (reference memory).
• No significant differences in performance were observed between pigs exposed to mixing stress and controls.

Conclusions:

• Pigs possess robust spatial learning and memory capabilities.
• Social mixing stress, under the conditions of this study, does not impair performance on this complex spatial task.
• These findings contribute to the understanding of porcine cognition and stress resilience.