Cognitive bias in animals

Cognitive bias in animals is a pattern of deviation in judgment, whereby inferences about other animals and situations may be affected by irrelevant information or emotional states.[1] It is sometimes said that animals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input.[2] In humans, for example, an optimistic or pessimistic bias might affect one's answer to the question "Is the glass half empty or half full?"

To explore cognitive bias, one might train an animal to expect that a positive event follows one stimulus and that a negative event follows another stimulus. For example, on many trials, if the animal presses lever A after a 20 Hz tone it gets a highly desired food, but a press on lever B after a 10 Hz tone yields bland food. The animal is then offered both levers after an intermediate test stimulus, e.g. a 15 Hz tone. The hypothesis is that the animal's "mood" will bias the choice of levers after the test stimulus; if positive, it will tend to choose lever A, if negative it will tend to choose lever B. The hypothesis is tested by manipulating factors that might affect mood – for example, the type of housing the animal is kept in.[3]

Cognitive biases have been shown in a wide range of species including rats, dogs, rhesus macaques, sheep, chicks, starlings and honeybees.[4][5]

  1. ^ Haselton, M. G.; Nettle, D. & Andrews, P. W. (2005). "The evolution of cognitive bias". In D. M. Buss (ed.). The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. Hoboken, NJ, US: John Wiley & Sons Inc. pp. 724–746.
  2. ^ Bless, H.; Fiedler, K. & Strack, F. (2004). Social cognition: How individuals construct social reality. Hove and New York: Psychology Press. p. 2.
  3. ^ Harding, EJ; Paul, ES; Mendl, M (2004). "Animal behaviour: cognitive bias and affective state". Nature. 427 (6972): 312. Bibcode:2004Natur.427..312H. doi:10.1038/427312a. PMID 14737158. S2CID 4411418.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rygula was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Mendl, M.; Burman, O.H.P.; Parker, R.M.A. & Paul, E.S. (2009). "Cognitive bias as an indicator of animal emotion and welfare: emerging evidence and underlying mechanisms". Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 118 (3–4): 161–181. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2009.02.023.