Validation and refinement of cogntive bias-based techniques for assessment of affective state in animals.

了解动物的感受会很有用。如果我们知道他们什么时候害怕、无聊或痛苦，让他们更快乐就容易多了。解读动物的情绪是一个很难的问题，因为与人类不同的是，它们不能表达自己的感受。幸运的是，人类和动物的基本情绪很可能非常相似，因为情绪具有保护我们的共同功能。参与让我们快乐的活动，比如吃饭和做爱，避免我们感到痛苦或恐惧的情况，将确保我们的基因传承到下一代。人类和动物情感在功能上的相似性表明了共同的进化起源，这反过来又表明，负责情感的生物机制也可能是相同的。这种相似性构成了用于解释动物情感的方法的基础。例如，如果我们知道人类的幸福与一系列行为、生理和心理特征有关，如微笑、低水平的压力荷尔蒙和对未来的乐观，而我们在动物身上发现了类似的模式，那么我们很可能可以肯定这种动物是幸福的。然而，这里有必要提醒一句：进化已经对不同的物种进行了修修补补，假设人类幸福的每一个指标也会与另一个物种的幸福联系在一起是不安全的；当黑猩猩露出露齿微笑时，这实际上是一种威胁展示。因此，我们不应该依赖任何单一的衡量标准，而应该在试图解释动物的情感时使用所有可用的信息。我们的目标是开发新的方法来测量动物的情绪，基于人类的发现，我们的情绪影响我们的思维。“头”和“心”经常被描绘成敌对的野兽，但正如我们上面所看到的，情绪很可能是做出正确决定的关键。事实上，研究已经证实，我们的情绪会极大地影响我们看待世界的方式、我们对世界的记忆以及我们做出的判断。例如，抑郁的人会把杯子理解为半空，而快乐的人会把同样的杯子理解为半满。这种现象被心理学家称为“认知偏差”。我们建议使用认知偏差作为动物情绪的衡量标准。我们将通过让动物将中性刺激分为好的或坏的来做到这一点。我们预测，如果动物快乐，它们更有可能对模棱两可的刺激感到乐观，而如果它们悲伤或焦虑，它们更有可能悲观。这样的技术已经在老鼠身上产生了一些令人鼓舞的结果，并希望将这些发现扩展到一种鸟类--欧洲八哥。我们希望设计出既快速又容易实施的认知偏见任务。我们希望通过利用鸟类自然行为的知识来做到这一点。我们将首先训练八哥从锅里取下纸板盖，以取回隐藏的虫子。然后我们将告诉这些鸟，一种颜色的盖子(例如白色)与美味的蠕虫有关，另一种颜色(例如黑色)与有毒的苦味蠕虫有关。一旦八哥学会了这种辨别能力，我们就会用中等灰色的眼皮来挑战它们。我们预测，一只八哥感觉越乐观，它就越有可能把一只模棱两可的灰色盖子视为一只美味的虫子。我们将通过比较住在光秃秃的小笼子里的八哥和住在有栖息地和水浴的大笼子里的鸟的认知偏向，来研究不同类型住房对鸟类的情绪影响。除了开发测量认知偏差的行为技术外，我们还希望得出具体的建议，以改善圈养八哥的住房。

It would be useful to understand how animals feel. If we knew when they were frightened, bored or in pain it would be much easier to make them happier. Interpreting animals' emotions is a hard problem, because unlike humans they cannot report their feelings. Luckily, basic emotions are likely to be very similar in humans and animals because emotions serve a common function of protecting us. Engaging in activities that make us happy, like eating and sex, and avoiding situations in which we feel pain or fear will ensure that our genes survive to the next generation. The similarity of function between human and animal emotion suggests a common evolutionary origin, which in turn suggests that the biological mechanisms responsible for emotions are also likely to be shared. This similarity forms the basis of methods used for interpreting animal emotions. For example, if we know that happiness in humans is associated with a suite of behavioural, physiological and psychological features, such as smiling, low levels of stress hormones and optimism about the future, and we find a similar pattern in an animal, then it is probably a safe bet that this animal is happy. However, a word of caution is necessary here: evolution has tinkered with different species, and it is not safe to assume that every single indicator of happiness in humans will also be associated with happiness in another species; when a chimp gives a toothy 'smile', this is actually a threat display. For this reason, we should not depend on any single measure, but should use all available information when trying to interpret animals' emotions. We aim to develop new methods for measuring animal emotion based on findings in humans that our emotions affect our thinking. The 'head' and the 'heart' are often portrayed as rival beasts, but as we have seen above, emotion is likely to be vital for making good decisions. Indeed, research has confirmed that our emotions can significantly bias how we see the world, what we remember about it and the judgments we make. For example, a depressed person will interpret a glass as half empty, whereas a happy person will interpret the same glass as half full. Such phenomena are referred to by psychologists as 'cognitive biases'. We propose to use cognitive bias as a measure of animal emotion. We will do this by asking animals to classify neutral stimuli as either good or bad. We predict that if animals are happy then they are more likely to be optimistic about an ambiguous stimulus, whereas if they are sad or anxious they are more likely to be pessimistic. A technique like this has already produced some encouraging results in rats, and would like to extend these findings to a species of bird, the European starling. We want to devise cognitive bias tasks that are quick and easy to implement. We hope to do this by tapping into knowledge about the natural behaviour of birds. We will start by training starlings to remove a cardboard lid from a pot to retrieve a hidden worm. We will then teach the birds that one colour of lid (e.g. white) is associated with a tasty worm and another colour (e.g. black) is associated with a toxic, bitter-tasting worm. Once the starlings have learnt this discrimination we will challenge them with lids of intermediate shade of grey. We predict that the more optimistic a starling is feeling the higher will be the chance that it treats an ambiguous grey lid as predicting a tasty worm. We will investigate the emotional impact of different kinds of housing in our birds by comparing the cognitive bias of starlings in small bare cages, with that of birds in large cages enriched with perches and water baths. As well as developing behavioural techniques for measurement of cognitive bias, we also hope to arrive at specific recommendations for improvement in the housing of captive starlings.