Seminars

CONTAMINATION

Kimberly Yvonne Brosche 

University of Padova

INAF OAPD - Sala Jappelli, 26th February 11:30

A peek into animal cognition research with chicks and pigs

The study of animal cognition explores how animals acquire and use information from the environment. Non-human animals often perform behaviors that seem “smart”, complex, or indicative of deeper insightfulness. However, confidently ascribing certain cognitive capacities, such as proto-counting, self-awareness or communicative abilities to animals is not trivial. Often, seemingly complex behaviors can be attributed to relatively simple cognitive mechanisms, such as associative learning. Animal cognition research aims at deducing underlying cognitive mechanisms from observable measures. My research focuses on farm animals, a group whose cognitive abilities are largely understudied. In this talk, I will address a selection of intriguing questions about farm animals’ minds. Focusing on numerical cognition, i.e., how animals process quantities and numerosities, I will present studies that helped us get a bit closer to unraveling how cognition has evolved.

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