The four pigs won. If they played the game well, they got delicious dog food (they used to get M & Ms, but the people decided it was too sugary). Every time researchers are asked to complete a video game task – to guide a pointer with a joystick, a kind of rudimentary Pong—They did it with impressive skill.
Researchers have puto put pigs on computerized tasks in the late 1990s, and although the results have received occasional coverage over the years, no peer-reviewed research on the experiments has yet been conducted. published until today, with a paper in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. The scientists found that pigs were able to understand and reach despite the extreme and visual limitations on the animals goals in simple computer games.
“What they could do is to succeed far beyond the chance of achieving these targets,” Candace Croney, director of Purdue University’s Center for Animal Welfare Science and lead author of the article, said in a call. “And it’s good enough that it’s very clear that they have a conceptual understanding of what they are being asked to do.”
The published research is the long-awaited fruit of about 20 years of labor that began when Croney was at Purdue University and was with productive pig researcher Stanley Curtis. The project follows the efforts of two Yorkshire pigs, Hamlet and Omelet, and two Panepinto micro-pigs, Ebony and Ivory, as they try to move a cursor to an illuminated area on the computer screen.
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“They beg to play video games,” Curtis said tell the AP in 1997. “They beg to be the first out of their pens, then they trot up the driveway to play.”
It was an uphill battle for the pigs. The joysticks were equipped for trials with primates, and the porcupines had to use their snouts and mouths to do the job. All four pigs were found to be farsighted, so the screens had to be placed at an optimal distance so that the pigs could see the targets. There were additional restrictions on the Yorkshire pigs. The heavier pigs could not continue to grow on their feet for too long.
“Although there were physical limitations to how well the pigs could see the screen or manipulate the joystick, they clearly understood the connection between their own behavior, the joystick and what was happening on the screen,” said Lori Marino, a neuroscientist. . unrelated to the current newspaper, said in an email. Marino, who runs the Whale Sanctuary project, has long studied mammals’ cognition, intelligence and self-awareness, including in pigs. “It’s a testament to their cognitive flexibility and ingenuity that they were able to find ways to manipulate the joystick, despite the fact that the test setup was difficult for them to physically engage with.”
“What makes these findings even more important is that the pigs in this study show self-agency,” Marino added, “which is the ability to realize that one’s own actions make a difference.”
The pigs were taught a number of commands to make their lives, as well as those of the researchers, easier. They learned instructions similar to what you would teach a dog – to sit, to come, to wait off their pens when they needed to be cleaned – as well as to fetch their toys when the video games were over. .
“At some point, they became really good at getting their toys and not so good at cleaning themselves,” Croney said. ‘I almost became a pig guard daycare worker, and went around sorting it out. Then we started teaching them to put things back together. ”
Following the investigation, the Yorkshire pigs were searched by the owners of a bed and breakfast, where they lived out their lives on the farm. Ebony and Ivory finally retired to a kindergarten. Croney said she even visited Hamlet years after the experiments, who heard her voice and came ‘galloping’ across the pasture to say hello.
Pigs may not have the dainty fingers of a primate or the doleful appearance of a puppy, but cognitively they are strong in competition. Winston Churchill once said that “Dogs look at you, cats look down at you. Give me a pig! He looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal. ‘It’s past the time we’re giving respect to pigs.