Version 1
: Received: 24 April 2024 / Approved: 25 April 2024 / Online: 25 April 2024 (08:56:18 CEST)
How to cite:
Truax, J.; Vonk, J. Assessing Judgment Bias in Ambassador Animals: Two Case Studies. Preprints2024, 2024041640. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1640.v1
Truax, J.; Vonk, J. Assessing Judgment Bias in Ambassador Animals: Two Case Studies. Preprints 2024, 2024041640. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1640.v1
Truax, J.; Vonk, J. Assessing Judgment Bias in Ambassador Animals: Two Case Studies. Preprints2024, 2024041640. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1640.v1
APA Style
Truax, J., & Vonk, J. (2024). Assessing Judgment Bias in Ambassador Animals: Two Case Studies. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1640.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Truax, J. and Jennifer Vonk. 2024 "Assessing Judgment Bias in Ambassador Animals: Two Case Studies" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1640.v1
Abstract
Judgment bias tasks assess optimism and pessimism through responses to ambiguous stimuli. Optimistic individuals anticipate receiving a reward whereas pessimistic individuals anticipate a lack of reward when interacting with ambiguous stimuli, which is reflected in approach time. Researchers have used these tests to assess animals’ reactions to assumed positive and negative contexts, but rarely to assess the effects of participation in ambassador programs. We tested two ambassador animals: a domestic chicken and a red tegu after exposure to zoo visitors. Once they learned that a container on the left contained food whereas a container on the right contained no food, we introduced an ambiguous container equidistant from the left and right locations. We assessed the chicken’s judgment biases when she was perched or held. We assessed the tegu’s judgment bias when visitors were allowed to touch him or not. The chicken displayed pessimism whether it was held or perched, but the tegu displayed pessimism only when no visitor touch occurred, suggesting that touch may not be aversive to the tegu, but that interacting with visitors may have deleterious effects on the chicken. We encourage the use of these tests to inform the use of animals in ambassador programs.
Keywords
red tegu; domestic chicken; visitor interactions; pessimism; optimism
Subject
Social Sciences, Psychology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
