Tuesday, March 2, 2021
  • Advertise with us
  • Contact Us
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Terms & Conditions
Dailynews journal
No Result
View All Result
SUBSCRIBE
  • Home
  • Bizarre
  • Entertainment
  • Gaming
  • General Knowledge
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science
  • Society
  • Technology
  • Weird Stuffs
  • Home
  • Bizarre
  • Entertainment
  • Gaming
  • General Knowledge
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science
  • Society
  • Technology
  • Weird Stuffs
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result

Pigs Can Be Trained To Play Video Games With Their Snouts, Study Reveals

Pigs are highly intelligent creatures, and a study released on Thursday has revealed that they’re skilled gamers, too. 

Published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, the paper is the culmination of extensive research into pig intelligence that began in the ’90s by scientists working with Stanley Curtis, a “legendary swine researcher” who died in 2010. It was co-authored by Candace Croney, director of Perdue University’s Center for Animal Welfare Science, and Sarah Boysen, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University renowned for her research into chimpanzees.

The paper highlights two Yorkshire pigs named Hamlet and Omelet, and two Panepinto micro pigs — often used in research and usually weighing 50-70 pounds — named Ebony and Ivory, all of whom were kept at Pennsylvania State University. 

The pigs were trained at a “rudimentary joystick-operated video game task” that had originally been created to test chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys. They learned how to manipulate a joystick with their snouts to move a computer cursor across a screen. Once they maneuvered the cursor to hit a wall, a treat dispenser connected to the joystick would deliver a snack.

Note the treat dispenser next to the joystick.



Candace C. Croney et al / Frontiers in Psychology

Note the treat dispenser next to the joystick.

The game had varying difficulty levels, and the number of walls that appeared on-screen decreased from four to one. The pigs, all of whom were far-sighted, eventually excelled at the game, though their performance varied at the higher difficulty levels. (Ivory hit the one-walled target an impressive 76% of the time, for instance.)

Hamlet and Omelette were also forced to retire after 12 weeks of training because “they had grown too large to stand long enough to complete sessions.”

“That the pigs achieved the level of success they did on a task that was significantly outside their normal frame of reference in itself remarkable, and indicative of their behavioral and cognitive flexibility,” the study states, pointing out that even when the joystick broke, the hogs “continued to make correct responses when rewarded only with verbal and tactile reinforcement from the experimenter, who was also their primary caretaker.”

The pigs soon understood that the joystick's movement was connected with the computer cursor.



Erston Martz / Pennsylvania State University

The pigs soon understood that the joystick’s movement was connected with the computer cursor.

READ ALSO

Happy Husky Literally Says ‘No!’ When Asked To Come Inside From The Snow

Los Angeles Man Reunites With Cat Who Vanished 15 Years Ago

"That the pigs achieved the level of success they did on a task that was significantly outside their normal frame of referenc



Candace Croney

“That the pigs achieved the level of success they did on a task that was significantly outside their normal frame of reference in itself remarkable,” the researchers wrote.

The study notes that the pigs didn’t perform as well as the chimps and rhesus monkeys that were similarly trained with the joystick console, speculating that this was probably because the swines had to move the joystick with their snouts.

“Future studies of the cognitive capacities of pigs and other domestic species may benefit from the use of touchscreens or other advanced computer-interfaced technology,” the study concludes.

While teaching pigs to play games might seem like an unusual endeavor, in a press release published alongside the paper, Croney stressed that “improving pig welfare” was a major goal for the research.

“This sort of study is important because, as with any sentient beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them,” Croney said. “We therefore have an ethical obligation to understand how pigs acquire information, and what they are capable of learning and remembering, because it ultimately has implications for how they perceive their interactions with us and their environments.”  

In an email to HuffPost, Croney added that the study also demonstrated that the pigs were able to “think abstractly and do fairly advanced conceptual learning.” 

“We could train them on how to manipulate the joystick and how to attend to the screen but they had to independently figure out the connection between what they were doing and where … their behavior was actually having an effect,” Croney said. “You cannot teach that. The animal either figures it out or they don’t. And there is nothing in the natural behavior or evolutionary history of the pig that would have suggested they could do this to any degree.”

All of the pigs involved in the study — aside from Omelette, who developed health issues and had to be euthanized — lived well following their careers as gamers. Hamlet spent the rest of his life on a bed and breakfast farm, while Ebony and Ivory retired to a children’s zoo, Croney said.

Hamlet also appeared in a short documentary produced by the advocacy group Compassion in World Farming. The film compared his gaming prowess with that of a Jack Russell terrier that struggled to master the joystick game even after a year of training. 

RELATED…

Calling all HuffPost superfans!

Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost’s next chapter

ShareTweetPin

Related Posts

Happy Husky Literally Says ‘No!’ When Asked To Come Inside From The Snow
Weird Stuffs

Happy Husky Literally Says ‘No!’ When Asked To Come Inside From The Snow

Los Angeles Man Reunites With Cat Who Vanished 15 Years Ago
Weird Stuffs

Los Angeles Man Reunites With Cat Who Vanished 15 Years Ago

Wax Celebrity Statues Mingling With Guests At NYC Steakhouse
Weird Stuffs

Wax Celebrity Statues Mingling With Guests At NYC Steakhouse

Top 10 Shocking Stories From People Who Should Be Dead
Weird Stuffs

Top 10 Shocking Stories From People Who Should Be Dead

Leah Holland’s Pre-Pandemic Tattoo Wins For Worst Timing Ever
Weird Stuffs

Leah Holland’s Pre-Pandemic Tattoo Wins For Worst Timing Ever

Top 10 Most Heavily Guarded Places On Earth
Weird Stuffs

Top 10 Most Heavily Guarded Places On Earth

Next Post
Chris Harrison Steps Away From ‘Bachelor,’ Apologizes For ‘Excusing Historical Racism’

Chris Harrison Steps Away From 'Bachelor,' Apologizes For 'Excusing Historical Racism'

Trending

Happy Husky Literally Says ‘No!’ When Asked To Come Inside From The Snow

Happy Husky Literally Says ‘No!’ When Asked To Come Inside From The Snow

Top 10 Truly Terrible Things that are Legal Right Now

Top 10 Truly Terrible Things that are Legal Right Now

10 Man-Made Places Nature Decorated

10 Man-Made Places Nature Decorated

10 Outrageous Feasts From History

10 Outrageous Feasts From History

2021 Golden Globes: Here Are All The Winners

2021 Golden Globes: Here Are All The Winners

Top 10 Better-than-the-original Metal Cover Songs

Top 10 Better-than-the-original Metal Cover Songs

Top 10 Wholesome Creaters Who Were Anything But

Top 10 Wholesome Creaters Who Were Anything But

Los Angeles Man Reunites With Cat Who Vanished 15 Years Ago

Los Angeles Man Reunites With Cat Who Vanished 15 Years Ago

10 Best Tech Skills To Master

10 Best Tech Skills To Master

Top 10 Cults With Massive Followings

Top 10 Cults With Massive Followings

  • Advertise with us
  • Contact Us
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Terms & Conditions

© 2020 Copyrights - All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Bizarre
  • Entertainment
  • Gaming
  • General Knowledge
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science
  • Society
  • Technology
  • Weird Stuffs

© 2020 Copyrights - All rights reserved.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

SAVE & ACCEPT