Yet for many decades the idea of animals feeling emotions or having personalities was dismissed by behavioural scientists. Recent work has debunked this idea whether or not Descartes actually said it.
If any mammal appears to be free of emotions, apart perhaps from cynicism, it would be the goat. Yet scientists have been able to show that goats become emotionally aroused in response to various test situations, and whether these emotions are positive or negative. Horses are a bundle of emotions. This is not surprising, given that they are very social animals, with a close relationship with others in their herds and are also prey animals whose response to threat is to run away as fast as possible.
In Canada, horse riding is reckoned to be one of the most dangerous sports, ahead of motor racing and skiing, and the emotional state of the horse is an important aspect of the safety or otherwise of the rider.
Researchers in France looked at the level of emotion and the ability to learn shown by horses from 22 different riding schools. The ability of a horse to be fairly calm in the face of a novel situation, and to learn quickly that a new object or situation is not threatening, is crucial when riding. So the researchers concentrated on these aspects of horse emotion. Many of our ebooks are available through library electronic resources including these platforms:. Can your cat tell that the coffee pot you left on might start a fire?
Could a chimpanzee be trained to program your computer? In this provocative book, noted animal expert Clive Wynne debunks some commonly held notions about our furry friends. And how about the sonar-guided bat, which locates flying insects in the dark of night and devours lunch on the wing?
Engagingly written, Do Animals Think? Wynne is clearly arguing against the view of animal rights advocates such as Peter Singer and Jane Goodall who ascribe human attributes to animals. But Wynne is no reactionary—he strongly sympathizes with those who wish to improve the treatment of animals. It helps his arguments that Wynne is often as entertaining as he is erudite. He argues that the degree to which animals are like us cannot be the measure of how much they are worthy of our respect and protection.
Most pet owners fervently believe that Fido or Fluffy has superior intelligence. One of the markers of intelligence is self-awareness, so here is a quick test to see if the animal has that ability.
Whenever you feed it pat the dog, cat, or whatever on the head. Repeat this routine for three to four days. You can use baking soda or carbon black.
Make sure you create a clearly visible spot on its head. Watch the animal closely to see if it stares at itself, or tries to rub the spot. If it does, congratulations, your pet has some sense of self. Clever experiments with monkeys and human infants show that they share thinking processes once thought to be in the minds of humans alone. Babies only days old can tell the difference between two languages such as Dutch and Japanese. When the infants hear someone saying sentences in Dutch, they express their interest by sucking rapidly on the nipples of pacifiers.
After a while they get bored with the Dutch talk and stop sucking enthusiastically. If someone then starts speaking Japanese, they will show increased interest by upping their sucking rate. Also, if you play the same sentences backward, the infants fail to react. But cotton-top tamarin monkeys easily distinguish between Dutch and Japanese. And they cannot make that distinction when the sentences are spoken backward.
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