On Tuesday, the GRCDI welcomed Tom Smulders from the AFFECT-EVO COST Action to the University of St Andrews for a discussion of the group’s progress and future plans to help better our understanding of affective states in non-human animals. The event brought together postgraduate students and staff from multiple schools across the university, alongside global members of the Global Research Centre for Diverse Intelligences (GRCDI) who joined as a hybrid event.
AFFECT-EVO is an ambitious multinational network aiming to develop a framework for studying affective states across species, which will help make findings more interpretable between different species. Developing our understanding of affective states is crucial to help inform animal welfare practices and design better environments for captive and domestic animals.
The efforts of AFFECT-EVO are split into four working groups:
WG1: Advancing fundamental understanding of affective states across species
WG2: Societal impacts of understanding animals’ affective states
WG3: Affective state assessment for improved animal welfare
WG4: Improving treatments of affective problems across species
The study of affective states can be approached as both dimensional and discrete. The dimensional approach looks at emotions along continuous scales such as valence (positive or negative), arousal, and activation, which can help researchers to make comparisons between species that are unable to express these emotions in the same manner. The discrete approach focuses on specific emotions such as fear, pain, or joy, and identifies the features that distinguish these states from reflexive responses. By combining both approaches, the group hopes to build a more complete understanding of affective states in non-human animals.
Membership of the COST action is free and open for any who would like to contribute to one of the working groups. For more information, visit affect-evo.eu