Meyer Susann, Puppe Birger, Langbein Jan
Leibniz-Institut fŭr Nutztierbiologie (FBN), Forschungsbereich Verhaltensphysiologie, Dummerstorf.
Berl Munch Tierarztl Wochenschr. 2010 Nov-Dec;123(11-12):446-56.
Animals in the wild are facing a wide variety of challenges and ever-changing environmental stimuli. For successful coping, animals use both innate behavioural programs and their cognitive skills. In contrast, zoo- and farm animals have to cope with restricted husbandry conditions, which offer only few opportunities to adequately satisfy their various needs. Consequences could be sensory and cognitive underchallenge that can cause boredom and frustration as well as behavioural disturbances. Initially intended for improvement of management and husbandry, different forms of operant behavioural training have been applied firstly in zoo- and later also in farm animals. It has been suggested that successful coping with appropriate cognitive challenges is a source of positive emotions and may lead to improved welfare. Under the term cognitive enrichment, new approaches have been developed to integrate cognitive challenges into the housing of zoo- and farm animals. The present article reviews actual research in the field. Previous results indicate that, beyond improvement of management and handling routines, such approaches can positively affect animal behaviour and welfare. The combination of explorative and appetitive behaviour with successful learning improves environmental predictability and controllability for the animals, activates reward-related brain systems and can directly affect emotional processes of appraisal. For practical implementation in farm animal husbandry, it sounds promising to link individual access to e.g. automated feeders or milking systems with previously conditioned stimuli and/or discriminatory learning tasks. First experimental approaches in pigs, dwarf goats and cattle are available and will be discussed in the present article.
野生动物面临着各种各样的挑战和不断变化的环境刺激。为了成功应对，动物既会运用先天的行为程序，也会施展其认知技能。相比之下，动物园动物和农场动物必须应对受限的饲养条件，这种条件几乎没有机会充分满足它们的各种需求。其后果可能是感官和认知刺激不足，进而导致无聊、沮丧以及行为紊乱。最初旨在改善管理和饲养方式的不同形式的操作性行为训练，首先应用于动物园动物，后来也应用于农场动物。有人提出，成功应对适当的认知挑战是积极情绪的一个来源，可能会改善动物福利。在“认知充实”这一术语下，已经开发出了新的方法，将认知挑战融入到动物园动物和农场动物的饲养环境中。本文综述了该领域的实际研究情况。先前的研究结果表明，除了改善管理和处理程序外，这些方法还能对动物行为和福利产生积极影响。探索性和欲求性行为与成功学习的结合，提高了动物对环境的可预测性和可控性，激活了与奖励相关的脑系统，并能直接影响评估的情绪过程。对于在农场动物饲养中的实际应用而言，将个体使用例如自动喂食器或挤奶系统与先前设定的刺激和/或辨别学习任务联系起来，听起来很有前景。目前已有在猪、矮山羊和牛身上进行的初步实验方法，并将在本文中进行讨论。
