Do animals have the same emotions as humans? Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, a researcher at Northeastern University, in the United States, and author of the book How emotions are made (Pan Macmillan, 2018), says that this question has continued to baffle the science community. When a human being thinks that an animal is experiencing an emotion, this may say more about the human brain than the animal’s behavior, explains Berrett. As examples, she cites a fly’s reaction to the threatening movement of a fly swatter (it rubs its legs together rapidly), a rat’s behavior when it hears a sound that it was trained to associate with a painful shock (it freezes in place), and a human being’s reaction when followed by a stranger on a dark road (wide eyes and accelerated heart rate).
– Care and empathy for animals
A casual observer, says the psychologist, would conclude that all three are exposed to a threat and, therefore, experience a state of fear. “But here’s the curious thing: the three examples have virtually nothing in common physically. They involve different kinds of brains in different situations, moving different kinds of bodies in different ways,” wrote Barrett in an article published in 2022 by The Guardian. It is the observer’s brain that tends to associate fear with the three situations. According to Barrett, it would be more scientifically useful to observe animals according to their characteristics. “Dogs can smell things we cannot. Birds can see colors we cannot. So maybe they can also feel things we cannot,” she wrote. “When one elephant stands by the body of another for days, clearly something is happening, but why must it be a primitive version of human grief? The idea that other animals share our emotions is compelling and intuitive, but the answers we provide may reveal more about us than about them.”
Appearances can be deceiving. “When we see [adult horses] play in captivity, it isn’t necessarily a good sign,” as stated on the website Science News by animal scientist Martine Hausberger, of the University of Rennes in France. According to her, in nature, adult horses rarely play and this behavior is more common among those in captivity. “They may exhibit play, and at that precise moment they may be happier, [but] animals that are feeling well all the time don’t need this to get rid of the stress.”
It can be difficult to interpret animals’ emotions, but there is plenty of evidence that they lead complex mental and emotional lives. Researchers at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), in Germany, recently demonstrated that pigs show signs of empathy. In an experiment, piglets were placed in a pen in the middle of which was a large box with a door and a window. At a certain point, the door of the box closes and the pigs inside are trapped. Eighty-five percent of the time, the animals figured out how to open the box and freed their trapped companion within 20 minutes. When no piglets were trapped inside, they were still able to open the box, but the frequency was much lower than when a pig was trapped inside. “We believe that helping behavior is based on some understanding of the other’s needs,” said Liza Moscovice, an FBN ethologist, when talking to Science journal. “This is a critical component of empathy.”
Léo Ramos Chaves /Revista Pesquisa FAPESPThe app VetPain helps evaluate pain levels in petsLéo Ramos Chaves /Revista Pesquisa FAPESP
The FBN is one of the few reference centers for studies on cognition as it relates to livestock, such as pigs, goats, and cattle. Another study compared goats and dogs in a set of cognitive tests. Goats subjected to an experiment known as the “impossible task” are exposed to a bowl of food they cannot access to feed themselves. Although they do not have a history of coevolution with humans, the goats resorted to the same expedient used by the dogs: they lunged at the nearby human as if they were asking for help.
“If we don’t understand how these animals think, then we won’t understand what they need. And if we don’t understand what they need, then we can’t design better environments for them,” said Jan Langbein, also an FBN ethologist, in speaking to Science. In another experiment, which is still ongoing, he evaluates affinity among cows. Pairs of female cattle were placed in an open arena and their interactions were observed, namely: some head-butted one another, others displayed cooperative behavior. Now, researchers are evaluating stress levels in cows that are “friends” when separated after a certain amount of time being together. One of the objectives is to learn if it is worth keeping animals that show a certain affinity towards one another together when confined in order to improve their well-being. “These are not dumb creatures. They have a rich emotional life and personality,” said Langbein to Science.
While emotions are difficult to dissect, there are objective ways of knowing when animals feel pain or discomfort. “We can make this kind of assessment by analyzing behavior and creating pain scales,” explains Stelio Pacca Loureiro Luna, a researcher at the Botucatu campus of UNESP’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences. Luna coordinated a project supported by FAPESP and completed last year, in which he validated this methodology for all domesticated species and livestock, such as cats, cattle, and horses. The scales, he explains, are created by analyzing hundreds of hours of animal footage. Images are recorded prior to a surgery and soon after, when postoperative pain reaches its peak. They continue recording images when the animal receives painkillers and 24 hours later, when the effects have worn off. “We analyze these videos and note which behaviors have changed — if, for example, the animal wagged its tail, laid prostrate, or changed its expression — and how long and how often this happened,” describes Luna.
The project gave rise to an app, VetPain, launched last year and available for Android and iOS operating systems. The app helps veterinarians and owners assess pain levels in all pets. The user must answer questions to assess characteristic signs of pain in behaviors such as posture, activity level, and reaction to being touched in the affected area. Each response corresponds to a score on a pain scale and the app indicates whether or not the animal needs pain killers (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue nº 328). According to Luna, other methods have been developed. He mentions the Qualitative Behavior Assessment, whereby animal behavior is interpreted by human observers, such as their owners, and expressed in words. A statistical analysis of the use of specific expressions is used to pinpoint patterns that identify behaviors. “It’s an approach that must still be validated,” notes Luna.
Project
Pain and quality of life in animals (nº 17/12815-0); Grant Mechanism Thematic Project; Principal Investigator Stelio Pacca Loureiro Luna (UNESP); Investment R$835,253.16.
Scientific articles
FEIGHLSTEIN M. et al. Automated recognition of pain in cats. Scientific Reports. june 2022.
BRONDANI, J. T. et al. Validation of the English version of the Unesp-Botucatu multidimensional composite pain scale for assessing postoperative pain in cats. BMC Veterinary Research. july 2013.
