The Language of Pigs ‘Translated’ For First Time In Scientific Study
Over 7,000 audio recordings of pigs’ barks, grunts and squeals were analyzed, with scientists now able to decode and understand the emotions behind each sound.
A team of scientists have decoded the emotions of pigs for the first time after a new study analysed more than 7,000 audio recordings of the animals throughout their lives.
The landmark study saw researchers collect audio recordings of individual pigs during a variety of positive and negative life events from their births up until their deaths.
These positive scenarios included piglets suckling from their mothers, and being united with family after being separated. Emotionally negative scenarios included separation, castration, and slaughter.
With over 7,000 audio recordings of the pigs’ barks, grunts, screams and squeals, the team of researchers were able to design an algorithm that can decode whether an individual pig is experiencing a positive emotion, a negative one, or neutral.
"With this study, we demonstrate that animal sounds provide great insight into their emotions”, says Professor Elodie Briefer of the University of Copenhagen, who co-led the study. “We also prove that an algorithm can be used to decode and understand the emotions of pigs[...]".
The pigs’ language was noted for its nuances in the length, loudness, and frequency of a grunt or noise.
"There are clear differences in pig calls when we look at positive and negative situations. In the positive situations, the calls are far shorter, with minor fluctuations in amplitude. Grunts, more specifically, begin high and gradually go lower in frequency”, explains Professor Elodie Briefer.
As well as language, general signs of happy behaviours in individual pigs included the animals exploring their surroundings and having their ears postured forward.
The study’s findings were published this month in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, and become the latest research in the relatively new field of analysing animal emotions.
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