The scientific study of animal affect (emotion) is an area of growing interest. Whilst research
on mechanism and causation has predominated, the study of function is less advanced. This …

Validated measures of animal affect are crucial to research spanning numerous disciplines.
Judgement bias, which assesses decision-making under ambiguity, is a promising measure …

Dog training methods range broadly from those using mostly positive punishment and
negative reinforcement (aversive-based) to those using primarily positive reinforcement …

Serotonin has widespread, but computationally obscure, modulatory effects on learning and
cognition. Here, we studied the impact of optogenetic stimulation of dorsal raphe serotonin …

Dogs can discriminate stressed from non-stressed human odour samples, but the effect on
their cognition is unstudied. Using a cognitive bias task, we tested how human odours affect …

Behavioral testing constitutes the primary method to measure the emotional states of
nonhuman animals in preclinical research. Emerging as the characteristic tool of the …

Objective measures of animal emotion-like and mood-like states are essential for preclinical
studies of affective disorders and for assessing the welfare of laboratory and other animals …

Emotions influence human decisions under risk and uncertainty, even when they are
unrelated to the decisions, ie incidental to them. Empirical findings are mixed regarding the …

Scientific methods for assessing animal affect, especially affective valence (positivity or
negativity), allow us to evaluate animal welfare and the effectiveness of 3Rs Refinements …

Spatial judgement bias tests (JBTs) can involve teaching animals that a bowl provides a
reward in one location but does not in another. The animal is then presented with the bowl …