I’m live here. I’m a pig.
Eston Martz / Pennsylvania State University
Yorkshire pigs Hamlet and Omelet and Panepinto micro pigs Ebony and Ivory are ambassadors for their species. The quartet was the focus of a study that tested whether they could learn to play a video game. Spoiler alert: they were pretty good with it.
Purdue specialist in animal behavior Candace Croney and cognition expert on chimpanzees Sarah Boysen were co-authors of a study on pigs published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology on Thursday. The study chronicles an experiment to investigate the cognitive processes (“such as memory, attention, and conceptualization”) of farm animals.
The experiment involved first teaching the pigs how to manipulate a joystick using their snouts. They were then taught to use the joystick to play a video game on a monitor in front of them. The pigs do not yet rescue Princess Peach, but they have shown an exceptional ability to learn and operate the game.
Micro-pig ebony plays a video game.
Candace Croney
“Each pig performed the tasks far beyond the chance, indicating that the animal understands that the movement of the joystick is linked to the cursor on the computer screen,” Frontiers said in a statement.
The pigs were rewarded with food to play the game properly, but they also responded to verbal encouragement.
Frontiers said the pigs ‘do not meet the criteria used for primates to fully master the concept’, but the researchers suspect it is related to the operation of the experiment. It is not designed for far-sighted animals with limited agility. The scientists suggest that a touch screen is an option to explore in the future.
The study was small and limited, but it could have implications for scientists’ understanding of swine intelligence and the ability of animals to learn. The researchers want to take the study further to see if computers and symbols can be used for communication with pigs.
“It is not a small achievement for an animal to understand the concept that the behaviors they perform elsewhere have an effect,” Croney said. “If pigs can do that to any degree, we need to get some pause on what they can still learn and how such learning can affect them.”