Research on animal learning and cognition has so far mainly focused on a few prominent model species, including primates, corvids and dogs. For years, comparative psychologists and ethologists have been suggesting that more animal species should be considered in comparative cognitive science. The abundance and accessibility of livestock offer an opportunity, not merely to extend the comparative approach, but also to deepen our knowledge of the mental lives of farm animals. Such approaches also help to assess the needs of farm animals, in order to improve their welfare. In recent years, scientific interest in different aspects of farm animal psychology, including emotionality, personality and cognitive capacities, has been on the rise, proving that farm animals have sophisticated cognitive skills to comprehend and cope with their environment. As knowledge of how farm animals perceive and interact with their physical and social environments is crucial for animal welfare, the aim of this Research Topic is to promote investigations of farm animal cognitive capacities and their implications for animal welfare-related issues. We have therefore collected original research and review articles, as well as opinion and perspective papers that are distributed among the two hosting magazines, Frontiers in Veterinary Science (section Animal Behavior and Welfare) and Frontiers in Psychology (section Comparative Psychology). The published articles present state-of-the-art research on farm animal learning and cognition, highlight future perspectives in this research area and pinpoint shortcomings and limitations in interpreting current findings. They offer new cross-disciplinary frameworks (e.g. links between affective states and cognition) and discuss the applied implementation of these findings (e.g. cognitive enrichment). These contributions will increase our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that enable farm animals to effectively interact with their environment and pave the way for future cross-disciplinary endeavors.

Animal Cognition and Sequential Behavior: Behavioral, Biological, and Computational Perspectives brings together psychologists studying cognitive skill in animal and human subjects, connectionist theorists, and neuroscientists who have a common interest in understanding function and dysfunction in the realm of complex cognitive behavior. In this volume, discussion focuses on behavioral, cognitive, psychobiological, and computational approaches to understanding the integration of ongoing behavior, with particular attention to models of timing and the organization of sequential behavior.

This book highlights the state of the field in the new, provocative line of research into the cognition and behavior of the domestic dog. Eleven chapters from leading researchers describe innovative methods from comparative psychology, ethology and behavioral biology, which are combined to create a more comprehensive picture of the behavior of Canis familiaris than ever before. Each of the book’s three parts highlights one of the perspectives relevant to providing a full understanding of the dog. Part I covers the perceptual abilities of dogs and the effect of interbreeding. Part II includes observational and experimental results from studies of social cognition – such as learning and social referencing – and physical cognition in canids, while Part III summarizes the work in the field to date, reviewing various conceptual and methodological approaches and testing anthropomorphisms with regard to dogs. The final chapter discusses the practical application of behavioral and cognitive results to promote animal welfare. This volume reflects a modern shift in science toward considering and studying domestic dogs for their own sake, not only insofar as they reflect back on human beings.

This is the first book to collate and synthesise the recent burgeoning primary research literature on dog behaviour, evolution and cognition. The author presents a new ecological approach to the understanding of dog behaviour, demonstrating how dogs can be the subject of rigorous and productive scientific study without the need to confine them to a laboratory environment. Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition starts with an overview of the conceptual and methodological issues associated with the study of the dog, followed by a brief description of their role in human society - almost a third of human families share their daily life with the dog! An evolutionary perspective is then introduced with a summary of current research into the process of domestication. The central part of the book is devoted to issues relating to the cognitive aspects of behaviour which have received particular attention in recent years from both psychologists and ethologists. The book's final chapters introduce the reader to many novel approaches to dog behaviour, set in the context of behavioural development and genetics. Directions for future research are highlighted throughout the text which also incorporates links to human and primate research by drawing on homologies and analogies in both evolution and behaviour. The book will therefore be of relevance and use to anyone with an interest in behavioural ecology including graduate students of animal behaviour and cognition, as well as a more general audience of dog enthusiasts, biologists, psychologists and sociologists.

This text focuses on the scientific study of animal intelligence. It celebrates comparative cognition's first quarter century, with a collection of chapters, covering the realm of the scientific study of animal intelligence.

In comparative psychology we draw inferences about the evolution of cognition by investigating the similarities and differences between human and non-human animals. I am especially interested in which cognitive skills have evolved in different species that allow them to be optimally adapted to their environment. Dogs, due to their high sociality and the fact that they were subject to a special domestication process, represent a highly promising model to investigate social cognition from a comparative perspective. Studying dog cognition not only sheds light on the question on what skills humans share with other animal species, but also what kind of selection pressures lead to human-like skills. Dogs are not simply pets that live in the human environment, but they also form a close relationship to humans and cooperate with them. Thus, studying dogs living in that special niche will not only inform us about their cognitive skills but might also help us to better understand the selection pressures that led to the unique cognition of humans. In this thesis I present a view on dog cognition that differentiates individual cognitive skills, pointing out how exactly they are adapted to their special human environment. Thus, I emphasize the unique closeness of the dog-human relationship. I also point out where current findings are incomplete or show limits of their paradigms and call for further research. Firstly, I criticize the fact that most data on dogs' understanding of their social and physical environment is based on performance in the visual or sometimes in the auditory modality. As dogs' olfaction is their most relevant sense, I therefore call for more dog studies that are based on olfaction. Secondly, regarding the dog-human relationship, there are many open questions that have not yet been considered well enough: for example, whether dogs are capable of skills like empathy, the human perspective on dogs, and cultural differences in dog-human interactions. Thirdly, to better understand the dog-human bond it is crucial to further investigate when, where and how domestication started. This is also needed in order to understand why dogs were domesticated and what made and makes them valuable for humans. To answer the above mentioned questions, an interdisciplinary approach is crucial, in which scientists from the fields of archaeology, linguistics, paleoclimatology, genetics, anatomy, ethology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology work together.