Animal Welfare Program, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z6.
Animal Welfare Program, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z6.
J Dairy Sci. 2019 Nov;102(11):10677-10694. doi: 10.3168/jds.2019-16325. Epub 2019 Aug 30.
Affective states, which refer to feelings or emotions, are a key component of animal welfare, but these are also difficult to assess. Drawing upon a body of theoretical and applied work, we critically review the scientific literature on the assessment of affective states in animals, drawing examples where possible from research on dairy cattle, and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of scientific methods used to assess affective states in animals. We adopt the "valence/arousal" framework, describing affect as a 2-dimensional space (with valence referring to whether an experience is positive or negative, and arousal referring to the intensity of the experience). We conclude that spontaneous physiological and behavioral responses typically reflect arousal, whereas learned responses can be valuable when investigating valence. We also conclude that the assessment of affective states can be furthered using mood assessments and that the use of drug treatments with known emotional effects in humans can be helpful in the assessment of specific affective states in animals.
情感状态是动物福利的一个关键组成部分，它是指感觉或情绪，但这些也很难评估。我们参考了一系列理论和应用工作，批判性地回顾了关于动物情感状态评估的科学文献，尽可能从奶牛研究中举例，并强调了用于评估动物情感状态的科学方法的优缺点。我们采用“效价/唤醒”框架，将情感描述为一个二维空间（效价是指体验是积极的还是消极的，唤醒是指体验的强度）。我们得出的结论是，自发的生理和行为反应通常反映了唤醒，而习得的反应在研究效价时可能很有价值。我们还得出结论，使用情绪评估可以进一步评估情感状态，并且在人类中使用具有已知情绪效果的药物治疗在评估动物的特定情感状态方面可能会有所帮助。
