This review discusses how welfare scientists can examine vocalizations to gain insight into the affective states of individual animals. In recent years, researchers working in professionally managed settings have recognized the value of monitoring the...
Understanding the emotional states of animals is a long-standing research endeavour that has clear applications in animal welfare. Vocalisations are emerging as a promising way to assess both positive and negative emotional states. However, the...
Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in rats are thought to contain ecological signals reflecting emotional states. These USVs are centered on 50-kHz, and frequency modulation (FM) is hypothesized to indicate positive emotion; however, results from recent studies...
To ensure the optimal living conditions of farm animals, it is essential to understand how their senses work and the way in which they perceive their environment. Most animals have a different hearing range compared...
Adult mice emit many ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during social interaction tasks, but only a few studies have yet reported USVs in stressed adult mice. Our aim was to study which experimental conditions favor USV emission...
Animal sounds are commonly used by humans to infer information about their motivations and their health, yet, acoustic data is an underutilized welfare biomarker especially for aquatic animals. Here, we describe an acoustic monitoring system...
Emotional contagion, a basic component of empathy defined as emotional state-matching between individuals, has previously been shown in dogs even upon solely hearing negative emotional sounds of humans or conspecifics. The current investigation further sheds...
The concentration of CO2 is relatively large in poultry farms and high accumulations of this gas reduce animal welfare. Good control of its concentration is crucial for the health of the animals. The vocalizations of...
In captivity, positive human-animal interactions are often part of daily management procedures, which can enhance the welfare of animals and help caregivers with routine husbandry tasks. For example, the provisioning of food (produce or enrichment)...
Vocal communication, cognition, and affective state are key features of sustained health and wellness, and because vocalizations are often socially-motivated, social experience likely plays a role in these behaviors. The monoaminergic systems of the ventral...