Dr Elodie F Briefer

GROUP

 

Anne-Laure Maigrot, Former Ph.D. student

Projet: vocal indicators of emotions in non-domesticated ungulates

 

My primary research interests are behaviour and vocal communication in mammals.

I previously worked on emotions in horses to find vocal and behavioural indicators

of the emotional state of the animal. The aim of my PhD is to understand how the

arousal (or intensity) and valence (positive/negative) of the emotions that animals

experience affect the characteristics of their behavior and vocalizations. I am

working on two wild species (wild boars and Przewalski horses) and I will

compare my results with what we have found in pigs, goats and domestic horses

to see if these indicators (vocal end behavioural) have been conserved throughout

evolution and if they have been affected by domestication.

 

Monica Padilla de la Torre, Former postdoc

Projet: vocal indicators of emotions in cattle

 

Expression (e.g. visual, vocal) and perception of emotional states play an important role regulating social interactions in social species. Cattle, like many other social animals, use vocalisations to communicate. Surprisingly, vocal communication in cattle has been poorly studied despite its huge economic importance. Indicators of emotions in human voice have also been studied in detail. However, similar studies testing a direct link between emotions and vocal structure in non-human animals are rare, particularly concerning emotional valence (positive/negative). Variations in vocal parameters according to emotional arousal have been measured in several species. However, variations according to emotional valence have rarely been investigated. Furthermore, most studies have focused on the most obvious parameters of vocalizations, such as calling rate, duration or the occurrence of call types. New methods, adapted from studies on human speech to non-human mammal vocalizations, and linking the acoustic structure of vocalizations to their mode of production, could allow a far better understanding of why and to what extent calls vary between individuals and between contexts. 

 

Jasmin Sowerby Greenall, Research assistant

Project: recognition of expression of emotions in domesticated and wild ungulates by humans

Perception and contagion of vocal expression of emotions has the potential to occur not only between conspecifics, but also between heterospecifics, such as between humans and domesticated animals. The aim of this project is to test if humans are able to recognise vocal expression of emotional valence and arousal in domestic ungulates (horses, pigs, goats and cattle) and their closely related species (Przewalski’s horses and wild boars), and to investigate the factors influencing this recognition. For instance, there is now strong evidence that vocal expression of emotional arousal, and maybe also valence, has been conserved throughout evolution. Consequently, even distantly related species express their emotions in a similar way. Humans could thus be able to recognise expression of emotions in a wide variety of animals as a result of cross-taxa universal acoustic coding of emotions. Second, humans could be able to recognise expression of emotions in domesticated, but not in non-domesticated animals, because individuals whose emotions can be more easily recognised might have been selected throughout domestication. Third, humans could recognise expression of emotions in the vocalisations of species they are familiar with, as a result of experience. Finally, other factors, such as gender, age and empathy could influence our ability to recognise animal emotions. In addition, we will test what are the vocal parameters that are used by human to rate the emotional valence and arousal of animal vocalisations. Human-animal perception of emotions could enhance human-animal communication and understanding, and as a result, improve the way in which domesticated animals are housed and handled.

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COLLABORATORS

 

Sabrina Briefer Freymond & Iris Bachmann - Agroscope - Swiss National Stud Farm

 

Alan McElligott, Luigi Baciadonna & Ben Pitcher - Queen Mary University of London

 

Hanno Würbel, University of Bern 

 

SOUNDWEL (ANIHWA funded project) "Toward a tool for farmers to evaluate welfare states of pigs: measuring vocal indicators of emotions" with Céline Tallet (INRA, France), Cécile Bourguet (E.T.R.E, France), Alain Boissy and Véronique Deiss (INRA, France), Birger Puppe and Sandra Düpjan (Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology, Germany), Marek Spinka and Pavel Linhart (Institute of Animal Science, Czech Republic), Andrew Janczak (Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway).