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*Species-specific Factors to Consider When Assessing Findings on Pig Behavior and

Cognition
+Evolution and History Of Domestication
-Domestication origins (Giuffra)
-Behaviorally not too dissimilar from wild boars (Held)
-Social Behavior especially not dissimilar
(Graves; Jensen)
-Ontogeny and early exp more important
(Albiach-Serrano)
-Conclusion: behavior adapted to physical and social env, not selective breeding

+Sensory Abilities
-Stimuli and setting differences are important (Geiling)
-Domestication did not change environment much (Held, Jensen)
-snout has most tacticle receptors (Kruska) because it's used in many behaviors (Stolba)
-Olfaction is keenest; rely heavily on sense of smell (Croney).
-Smell used to find social identity (Mendl), and sexual state (Signoret) and emotional state (McGlone);
hierarchies (Mendl).
-Also use sound for identity and arousal (Manteuffel); parenting (Weary).
-Can hear ultrasound
-Vision mostly used in conjunction with others (Arave), but can work with vision alone (Koba)

*The Scientific Literature

+Research Methods
"It's pretty damn comprehensive, yo."

*Findings from the Literature

-MVPs: Croney

+Nonsocial Cognition
-Object discrimination learning (Kehoe)
-Pigs also demonstrated complex object discrimination that requires robust memory
(Croney, Hemsworth, Tanida)

-Can distinguish between novel and familiar objects, and prefers novel ones (Gifford)

-Prioritize important memories (Held)

-Use colors or olfactory senses (Croney)

-Preference for crates that needed short duration for rewards than longer ones, showing impatience
(Spinka)
-Can discriminate between items and actions involved (Cerbulis?); three different items, same action OR
same item, three actions.
-Time perception is an important area of cognitive research that has not yet been covered thoroughly.
-Lever-press requirement which showed that pigs understood the cognitive requirements of the task, but
were physically limited; overcame with different, improvised responses (Ferguson)
-Exhibited ability to anticipate between positive and negative situations (Imfeld-Mueller)

-Pigs can solve mazes well; complex spatial abilities (de Jon)
-holeboard procedure (van der Staay) where pigs forage for food in an open field with baited holes;
removes acute social stress
-Pigs remember location, content, and relative value; searched areas for food and avoid areas already
searched (Mendl)
-Pigs even remembered which site had more food and where it was when visiting a site after a visible
survey (Held)

-Play forms the basis for complex object-related and social abilities; related to creativity and innovation
(Bateson)
-play is found in most cognitively complex and adaptable nonhuman species
-Pigs play (Donaldson):
-Shaking, carrying, and tossing objects (Bolhuis)
-Locomotor play (Martin)
-Social play such as fighting, pushing, running after each other
(Horback)
-Pigs' need to play is important (Pedersen); best stimulated by diverse, complex, hands on, and renewable
objects and materials (Martin, Telkanranta)
-Pigs reared with play are more developed socio-cognitively
-Pigs who play make more optimistic choices (Douglas)

+Social Cognition and Complexity

-Pigs discriminate among individuals (de Souza, Jansen, etc)

-Pigs discriminate each other through olfactory cues such as urinary samples

(Mendl)
-Pigs can also discriminate auditory cues of other pigs; Female pigs responded more strongly to the sows
of its own piglets than to unfamiliar piglets (Illmann)
-Pigs can differentiate among different humans (Tanida) using visual, auditory cues; olfactory are not as
effective

-Perspective taking is associated with self-awareness, theory of mind, intentional deception, and empathy
(Bulloch, de Waal, Gallup, Twoner)
-pigs manipulate each other during social foraging situations; a pig followed an informed pig to find food
faster, and those exploited responded by increasing speed to run from the unknowing pig (Held);
examples are named "tactical deception"
-Pigs also discern human attention from head cues (Nawroth)
MVP: Mendl, Nawroth

+Self-awareness
-Usually tested through MSR, but (Coren) says it's not always the best test

-Pigs do not show clear signs of self-recognition, but they can use mirror as a tool to find hidden objects;
naive pigs first seeing a mirror made repetative movements to test the mirror (Broom)
-However, similar study done by (Geiling) shows poor results; may be caused by different breed, or that
pigs simply do not deal with mirrors often enough
-Pigs manipulated a modified joystick to move an on-screen cursor (Croney), an activity that requires
"self-agency," the ability to recognize actions caused by oneself: a fundamental component of autonomy

+Emotion
-Emotion defined as behavioral, neurophysiological, cognitive and conscious subjective processes that is
intimately tied to cognition (Mendl)
-Emotion contagion as simple form of empathy (de Waal)
-Pigs exhibited emotional contagion through responses to other pigs' anticipation of or negative events
(Reimert)
-recent extension of Reimert's study is very compelling

+Personality
-Pigs show characteristics like coping style
, response types, temperament, and behavioral tendencies associated with personality (Brown)
-Individual differences are consistent over time (Forkman, Gosling)
-Females had different individual aggression in group-feeding competition setting (Ruis)
-Piglets responded differently to being held down (Forkman)
-Gosling says Forkman's results map onto the human dimensions of agreeableness, extraversion, and
openness.