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Positive and negative contexts predict duration of pig vocalisations
Mary Friel1,2, Hansjoerg P Kunc1, Kym Griffin3
1School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, Medical Biology Centre, Belfast, UK.
Scientific Reports
|February 16, 2019
Summary
Pig grunts are shorter in positive emotional states than negative ones. This finding offers new insights into vocal indicators of animal emotions, particularly positive valence.
Area of Science:
- Animal behavior
- Animal communication
- Animal welfare
Background:
- Emotions are integral to animal behavior, categorized by arousal and valence.
- Clear indicators for emotional valence, especially positive valence, are scarce.
- Understanding emotional expression is vital for social interaction studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate vocalizations as potential indicators of emotional valence in pigs.
- To quantify changes in pig vocalizations under experimentally manipulated valence conditions.
Main Methods:
- Experimental manipulation of valence using cognitive bias trials (positive and negative).
- Quantification of acoustic parameters in pig vocalizations (grunts).
- Comparison of acoustic parameters between positive and negative valence contexts.
Main Results:
- Pig grunts were significantly shorter in positive valence trials compared to negative ones.
- No significant differences were found in other measured acoustic parameters.
- Results suggest varying sensitivity of acoustic parameters as indicators of emotional valence.
Conclusions:
- Grunt duration is a potential acoustic indicator of positive emotional valence in pigs.
- Different acoustic parameters may vary in their reliability for signaling emotional valence.
- Further research is needed to understand the context-dependency of acoustic signals for emotional states.
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