GENERAL COMMENTARY published: 10 March 2014 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00173 Future research direction on decoding animal well-being: the case of the horse

Nutankumar S. Thingujam*

Department of , Sikkim University, Gangtok, India *Correspondence: [email protected]

Edited by: Mattie Tops, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands Reviewed by: Clémence Lesimple, Laboratoire EthoS—UMR 6552, France

Keywords: animal wellbeing, observation, gender, age, personality, affectivity

A commentary on of the decoder. But, such research attempt was associated with the higher accu- requires several observers to enable the racy of recognition of several emotional How accurate are we at assessing others’ use of inferential statistical analysis. For expressions. In particular, overall well-being? The example of welfare assess- example, 30 male and 30 female trained recognition from the human face was asso- ment in horses observers could serve as the observers of ciated positively with conscientiousness, by Lesimple, C., and Hausberger, M. (2014). the horse’s SB/ARB with affectivity and , extraversion, but Front. Psychol. 5:21. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg. personality measures as controlled vari- negatively with (Matsumoto 2014.00021 ables. Alternatively, 30 young (say, 20–30 et al., 2000). Similarly, other researchers years) and 30 (say, 60 and above years) old also reported that human emotion decod- The study by Lesimple and Hausberger trained observers could form the sample ing of , , and (2014) compared in 26 cases the decod- for a study in which affectivity and person- from the facial expression was predicted ingofwellbeingofthehorsebyacare- ality could be used as controlled variables. by openness to experience; sadness decod- taker through a questionnaire on the one ing by agreeableness; recognition OBSERVERS’ GENDER AND DECODING hand and an experienced outside observer by extraversion (Mill et al., 2009). Hence, OF ANIMAL WELLBEING on the other hand. Stereotypic or abnor- the relationship between human observer’s In a study of human subjects Hall and mal repetitive behavior (SB/ARB) is what personality and recognizing horse’s well- Matsumoto (2004) found that women per- they study under the broad umbrella being in terms of SB/ARB is still an impor- formed better than men in recognizing of wellbeing. They reported that there tant area to be investigated. facial expressions of discrete - was a huge discrepancy in the prevalence anger, contempt, , , and sad- of SB/ARB between the results obtained AFFECTIVITY OF THE OBSERVER AND ness. This finding suggests that human through the experienced observer (37% of DECODING OF ANIMAL WELLBEING judgment of animal wellbeing in terms the horses) and the caretakers’ question- As observers require several hours of of horse’s SB/ARB may also differ across naire responses (5%). On the basis of this observation one may speculate that the the male and female trained observers result they conclude that there is under- state and trait of the observer may (decoders). estimation in the judgment of wellbeing influence the judgment of the animal’s of the horses by the caretakers and they wellbeing. Past research has shown that AGE OF THE OBSERVER AND human judgment of emotional expres- attribute it to the overexposure of the care- DECODING OF ANIMAL WELLBEING takers to their domestic horses. sions from the human face was associ- In another study of human subjects it ated with positive and negative affectivity I believe this is an interesting area of is reported that there is an age group (Rode et al., 2008). investigation and there is scope for fur- difference in the recognition of discrete The above suggestions could be appli- ther research. Among the several possi- emotions of facial expressions- anger, con- cable to the caretakers’ judgment of ani- ble avenues of continued research one can tempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, mal wellbeing in terms of horse’s SB/ARB. examine if decoding of horse’s SB/ARB and (Mill et al., 2009). Therefore, It is concluded that investigation of the is different across gender, age, affectivity it is possible that there is an age group dif- influence of gender, age, personality, and (positive and negative), and personality ference in human decoding (observation) affectivity of the observer as well as dimensions of the observer because ear- of horse’s well-being in terms of SB/ARB. the caretaker is worth a look in human lier work showed that judgment of human decoding of animal wellbeing in terms of discrete emotions from the human face PERSONALITY OF THE OBSERVER AND SB/ARB. is influenced by gender (e.g., Hall and DECODING OF ANIMAL WELLBEING Matsumoto, 2004), age (e.g., Mill et al., Existing literature shows that personal- REFERENCES 2009), affectivity (Rode et al., 2008), and ity of the observers (decoders) of human Hall, J. A., and Matsumoto, D. (2004). Gender personality (e.g., Matsumoto et al., 2000) facial expressions of discrete emotions differences in judgments of multiple emotions

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from facial expressions. Emotion 4, 201–206. doi: Mill, A., Allik, J., Realo, A., and Valk, R. (2009). Age- Citation: Thingujam NS (2014) Future research direc- 10.1037/1528-3542.4.2.201 related differences in ability: tion on decoding animal well-being: the case of the horse. Lesimple, C., and Hausberger, M. (2014). How a cross-sectional study. Emotion 9, 619–630. doi: Front. Psychol. 5:173. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00173 accurate are we at assessing others’ well-being? 10.1037/a0016562 This article was submitted to , a section of the The example of welfare assessment in horses. Rode, J. C., Mooney, C. H., Arthaud-day, M. L., journal Frontiers in Psychology. Front. Psychol. 5:21. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014. Near,J.P.,Rubin,R.S.,Baldwin,T.T.,etal. Copyright © 2014 Thingujam. This is an open-access 00021 (2008). An examination of the structural, article distributed under the terms of the Creative Matsumoto, D., LeRoux, J., Wilson-Cohn, C., discriminant, nomological, and incremen- Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, dis- Raroque, J., Kooken, K., Ekman, P., et al. (2000). tal predictive validity of the MSCEIT©V2.0. tribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, A new test to measure emotion recognition Intelligence 36, 350–366. doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2007. provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited ability: Matsumoto and Ekman’s Japanese 07.002 and that the original publication in this journal is cited, and Caucasian brief affect recognition test in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, (JACBART). J. Nonverbal Behav. 24, 179–209. doi: Received: 11 January 2014; accepted: 12 February 2014; distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not 10.1023/A:1006668120583 published online: 10 March 2014. comply with these terms.

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