Assessing the External Validity of Successive Negative Contrast – Implications for Animal Welfare

Ellis, Sarah L. H.; Riemer, Stefanie; Thompson, Hannah; Burman, Oliver H. P. (2019). Assessing the External Validity of Successive Negative Contrast – Implications for Animal Welfare. Journal of applied animal welfare science, 23(1), pp. 54-61. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/10888705.2019.1572509

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When unexpectedly switched from a preferred to a less-preferred food reward, non-human animals may decrease consumption below that when only receiving the less-preferred reward – a successive negative contrast (SNC) effect. SNC has been proposed as an animal welfare indicator, however, to be effective it should show external validity; being demonstrable outside of highly standardized laboratory settings. We therefore investigated whether the SNC effect typically shown in laboratory rats was observed in owned (pet) rats from heterogeneous non-laboratory environments. Subjects (N = 14) were tested in a consummatory SNC paradigm with solid food rewards. “Shifted” rats received a high-value reward for 10 days (pre-shift), a low-value reward for six days (post-shift), then one additional day of high-value reward (re-shift). “Unshifted” rats always received the same low-value reward. “Shifted” rats consumed more food during pre-shift and re-shift trials, but ate less of the low-value food than “unshifted” animals in the post-shift trials – a SNC effect. This confirms the external validity of the SNC paradigm, extending reproducibility to outside the laboratory, indicating translatability across contexts, thus enhancing its potential use as a welfare indicator.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) > Veterinary Public Health Institute > Animal Welfare Division
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) > Veterinary Public Health Institute
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH)

UniBE Contributor:

Riemer, Stefanie

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)
600 Technology > 630 Agriculture

ISSN:

1088-8705

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis

Language:

English

Submitter:

Homare Yamahachi

Date Deposited:

05 Jun 2019 11:09

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:28

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/10888705.2019.1572509

PubMed ID:

30694088

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.130202

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/130202

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