Animal Farm: Using Common Domestic Animals to Teach Comparative Psychology

Julia E Meyers-Manor

doi:10.46867/ijcp.2020.33.05.05

Abstract

As money for animal facilities at colleges and universities has declined, so too has the accessibility of students to hands-on experiences with animals. However, we know that laboratory experiences with animals provide students with better ideas of the challenges and joys of animal research. Faculty can be creative about using local resources or even their own pets to teach simple experiments in comparative cognition. This paper describes an animal lab utilizing locally available animals to test understanding of the human communicative gesture of a point. Outcomes of the lab provide interesting discussion for students, and students enjoy the experiences of using live animals to learn about comparative psychology.

Highlights

This paper describes a laboratory exercise, testing the capacity to understand a pointing gesture, that can be adapted to most environments with a variety of domestic animals and, potentially, some zoo animals
One theory that can be tested among farm animals is the degree of domestication (Hare et al, 2002; Miklósi & Soproni, 2006)
This theory posits that animals follow human pointing gestures based on the degree that they have been domesticated by humans

Summary

As money for animal facilities at colleges and universities has declined, so too has the accessibility of students to hands-on experiences with animals (Abramson, Wallisch, et al, 1999). This paper describes an animal laboratory utilizing locally available animals to test understanding of the human communicative gesture of pointing. One theory that can be tested among farm animals is the degree of domestication (Hare et al, 2002; Miklósi & Soproni, 2006) This theory posits that animals follow human pointing gestures based on the degree that they have been domesticated by humans. Animals with a long history of domestication (e.g., dogs, cats, goats) appear to perform better than animals with a shorter history of domestication or none at all (e.g., chimpanzees and wolves; as reviewed in Kaminski et al, 2005) This test allows for maximal flexibility in testing a variety of species that might be available to the class while allowing students to test a theoretical question. Dogs have been tested extensively, they do provide a nice demonstration for the students of an extremely successful animal in this pointing task and are typically accessible to a class

The Assignment

Procedure