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Emotion Evaluation and Response Slowing in a Non-Human Primate: New Directions for Cognitive Bias Measures of Animal Emotion?

Bethell, Emily J.; Holmes, Amanda; MacLarnon, Ann; Semple, Stuart

Emotion Evaluation and Response Slowing in a Non-Human Primate: New Directions for Cognitive Bias Measures of Animal Emotion? Thumbnail


Authors

Emily J. Bethell

Amanda Holmes

Stuart Semple



Abstract

The cognitive bias model of animal welfare assessment is informed by studies with humans demonstrating that the interaction between emotion and cognition can be detected using laboratory tasks. A limitation of cognitive bias tasks is the amount of training required by animals prior to testing. A potential solution is to use biologically relevant stimuli that trigger innate emotional responses. Here; we develop a new method to assess emotion in rhesus macaques; informed by paradigms used with humans: emotional Stroop; visual cueing and; in particular; response slowing. In humans; performance on a simple cognitive task can become impaired when emotional distractor content is displayed. Importantly; responses become slower in anxious individuals in the presence of mild threat; a pattern not seen in non-anxious individuals; who are able to effectively process and disengage from the distractor. Here; we present a proof-of-concept study; demonstrating that rhesus macaques show slowing of responses in a simple touch-screen task when emotional content is introduced; but only when they had recently experienced a presumably stressful veterinary inspection. Our results indicate the presence of a subtle “cognitive freeze” response; the measurement of which may provide a means of identifying negative shifts in emotion in animals.

Citation

Bethell, E. J., Holmes, A., MacLarnon, A., & Semple, S. (2016). Emotion Evaluation and Response Slowing in a Non-Human Primate: New Directions for Cognitive Bias Measures of Animal Emotion?. Behavioral Sciences, 6(1), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs6010002

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 27, 2015
Online Publication Date Jan 11, 2016
Publication Date Jan 11, 2016
Deposit Date Aug 23, 2018
Publicly Available Date Aug 28, 2018
Journal Behavioral Sciences
Publisher MDPI
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 6
Issue 1
Article Number 2
DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/bs6010002

Files

Published Journal Article (1.1 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).






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