Robins Andrew
Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton Campus, Gatton, Queensland 4343, Australia.
Animals (Basel). 2019 Aug 31;9(9):638. doi: 10.3390/ani9090638.
Domestic cattle possess lateralized cognitive processing of human handlers. This has been recently demonstrated in the preference for large groups of cattle to view a human closely within the predominantly left visual field. By contrast, the same stimulus viewed predominantly within the right visual field promotes a significantly greater frequency of dispersal from a standing position, including flight responses. The respective sets of behaviours correspond with the traditional terms of "near side" for the left side of cattle and horses, and the "off" or "far side" for the right side. These traditional terms of over 300 years usage in the literature communicate functional practicalities for handling livestock and the recognition of lateralized cognitive processing. In this review, the possibility of even earlier recognition and the significance of laterality in cattle-human interaction was argued, from the earliest representations of the letter "A", originally illustrated from nearly 4000 years before the present time as the head of an ox as viewed not from the front or from the right, but from the left (near) side. By extension, this knowledge of lateralization in cattle may represent the earliest written example of applied ethology-the study of the behaviour of animals under human management.
家牛对人类饲养者具有认知加工的偏向性。最近的研究表明，大多数牛更喜欢从左视野近距离观察人类群体。相比之下，当主要通过右视野观察相同刺激时，牛从站立姿势散开（包括逃跑反应）的频率会显著增加。这些不同的行为分别与牛马身体左侧的传统术语“近侧”和右侧的“外侧”或“远侧”相对应。这些在文献中使用了300多年的传统术语传达了处理牲畜的实用功能以及对认知加工偏向性的认识。在这篇综述中，有人认为从字母“A”的最早表示形式来看，牛与人互动中偏向性的认识可能更早出现，字母“A”最初绘制于距今近4000年前，描绘的是牛的头部，观察角度不是正面或右侧，而是左侧（近侧）。由此推断，牛的这种偏向性知识可能是应用动物行为学（研究人类管理下动物行为的学科）最早的书面例证。
