Cognition Flashcards
What is cognition?
The mechanism by which animals acquire, process, store and act on information from the environment.
Animal cognition
Describes the mental capacities of non-human animals and the study of those capacities.
Looks at the ability of the animal to be placed in a room and figure out where and what everything is.
Common husbandry practices and cognition
Require considerable physiological and behavioural adaptation by the animal. Failure to adjust to the environmental changes can result in a welfare problem.
Cognitive research
Used to determine potential mismatches between husbandry practices and adaptive abilities of livestock
ex. adaptation to facilities and feed bunks
Cognitive domains
Physical cognition
Social cognition
Physical cognition
An organisms understanding of objects and their various spatial and causal relationships
ex. understanding where there food and water is
Different traits of physical cognition
- Categorization
- Numerical ability
- Object permanence
- Reasoning/ inferences
- Tool use
Categorization
Ability to group items based on common features
Will help predict potential stressors. Ex. can an animal categorize all different types of food bowls as a food bowl
Numerical ability
Discrimination and judgement of distinct quantities
Can help determine the perceived predictability of environment and adaptation to stressors. Ex. understanding number of peers
Object Permanence
The notion that objects continue to exist when they move out of the visual field.
Implication: perceived predictability of environment (housing)
Reasoning/Inferences
Establishment of an association between a visible and an imagined event.
Implication: perceived predictability of environment (housing); complexity of cognitive enrichment
Tool Use
Manipulation of objects to reach goal.
Implication: Complexity of cognitive enrichment
Different aspects of social cognition
- Discrimination and recognition of conspecifics- effects group cohesion
- Discrimination of recognition of humans- effects stockmanship
- Communication with humans- effects management and stockmanship during handling and transport
- Social learning- effects learning, access to resources, and avoidance of harm
- Prosocial behaviour- has ethical implications
-Fairness- ethical implications
Social cognition
Discrimination and recall of conspecifics, either as the individual or group level. Also the ability to infer motivations and desires of others.
Learning
The change in behaviour resulted from information from outside the brain
Classical conditioning
A form of associated learning. A stimulus (unconditioned stimulus) that normally produces an involuntary response is paired with an arbitrary stimulus (conditioned stimulus) until the later alone elicits the same response. Ex. dog, food and bell
Predisposition to learn
There are certain cues that animals will more easily associate with different situations than others
Ex. taste easily associated with nausea, sound easily associated with shock… but difficult to switch them
Operant Conditioning
Another form of associative learning, where the individual changes the form, intensity, or frequency of a behaviour based on the consequences it produces.
ex. mouse presses button to get food and avoid electric shock
Animal Training
Often linked to operant conditioning. Rewards or punishment immediately after behaviour to either acquire or extinct behaviour.
Positive or negative
Reinforcement or punishment
Reinforcement
Positive= give reward
Negative= animal avoids situation and is relieved
Punishment
Positive= threaten/punish
Negative= take away something they like
Superstitious learning
Part of operant conditioning
If an animal is doing a behaviour when something happens, they will then assume that the action was what caused the something to happen
Non-associative learning
A form of learning where an animal will alter their response based on a single event. Will not involve a stimulus or pairing
Habituation
An example of non-associative learning.
The waning of a response to a repeated stimulus. Ex. train going by sheep… over time will begin to ignore it
Sensitization
An example of non-associative learning.
The repeated presentation of a stimulus lowers the threshold for the elicitation of a response
Animal intelligence
A group of skills that enable learning, problem solving, and higher-order cognition.
Hebb-Williams Closed field test
Changing the walls of a maze. Look at how many errors individuals make and give them a score.
Testing the animal intelligence
Motivation
The strength of the given behaviour, taking into account internal and external factors
Motivational state of an animal
A combination of the levels of all causal factors (genes, physiology, and experience/learning/memory.
Motivational control systems
- Feedback control- A displacement from an initial state within the tolerable range occurs. This change is monitored and some corrective action is taken that restores the state to the former condition
- Feedforward control- A change in state is predicted and corrective action taken before it can occur so that the state changes little from its former condition
Measuring motivation using operant conditioning
Once animals have learned to perform an operant task to obtain access to a resource, the work that is required for each access can be increased therefore determining the level of motivation
Moral behaviours in animals
Reciprocity and Empathy Ex. chimps working together to pull box and get food
One chimp although fed will help the other in case he wants the favour returned one day
