Research Bites Podcast
Research Bites Podcast
#27: Dr. Sara Hintze on animal well-being and intrinsic reward
00:00 Introduction to Research Bites Podcast
00:30 Join the Research Bites Membership
01:08 Introducing Dr. Sara Hintze
02:01 Dr. Hintze's Journey into Animal Welfare
04:43 The Evolution of Animal Welfare Science
06:22 Understanding Positive Welfare in Animals
09:33 Challenges in Measuring Animal Emotions
14:58 Individual Differences in Animal Welfare
19:28 Cognitive Bias and Optimism in Animals
22:28 Assessing Well-Being in Individual Animals
28:40 Balancing Individual Differences in Animal Training
30:23 The Importance of Addressing Underlying Problems
33:01 Introduction to Flow in Animal Behavior
34:10 Defining Intrinsic Reward and Flow
37:13 Exploring Flow in Animals
48:31 Inducing Flow in Companion Animals
51:39 Future Directions in Animal Welfare Research
54:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
In this episode of the Research Bites podcast, host Dr. Kristina Spaulding welcomes Dr. Sara Hintze, who studies animal welfare and emotions. They discuss the evolution of the study of animal welfare, shifting from focusing solely on reducing suffering to promoting positive emotional states. Dr. Hintze explains the complexities of measuring subjective experience in animals and highlights research related to cognitive bias, optimism, and individual differences in animal behavior. The conversation also delves into the intriguing concept of 'flow' in animals, exploring how activities such as herding and hunting might induce a state of intrinsic reward. The importance of choice, agency, and varied enrichment for enhancing animal well-being is also discussed.
For more information about Dr. Hintze, you can click here.
For more information, please check out my website and social media links below!
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[00:00:03] Host: Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Kristina Spaulding, and this is the Research Bites podcast brought to you by Science Matters Academy of Animal Behavior. We foster conversations about science and its application to animal training and behavior in an effort to improve well being for animals and the people they live with.
Please enjoy geeking out about the science of behavior. Hello fellow dog behavior nerds. If you are enjoying this podcast, you may be interested in learning more about the science of behavior. Consider joining our Research Bytes membership. Each month, I will present a summary of a recent article published on the science of dog behavior.
In addition, we get together several times a month to discuss all things dog behavior related. And each quarter I have a webinar on a broader topic. If you'd like to get more information, you can visit my website at www. sciencemattersllc.
com. And now on to our next episode. Hello, welcome everyone. Today I have Dr. Sara Hintze on the podcast. She studied veterinary medicine in Gießen, Germany. And after veterinary school, she completed her master's in applied animal behavior and animal welfare, Edinburgh. Dr. Hintze, Achieved her PhD from the University of Bern in Switzerland, where she studied emotions and horses.
And since 2017, she's been at Bochum University in Vienna, Austria. Since 2022, she's been an assistant professor for the study of emotions of farmed animals, mainly pigs and cattle. So welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you here.
[00:01:54] Guest: Thank you very much for the introduction and for the invitation, of course.
[00:01:58] Host: Yeah, I'm very interested in the work that you're doing. But before we get into the details, your area of research is in animal welfare. And as I just said in the bio, you're interested in looking at emotions. And I want to start by asking you what brought you to this subject and why did you decide to study it?
[00:02:17] Guest: As you said already in the intro, I'm a vet so have been focusing on health issues mainly and I was always interested in the other part that is important to somehow function in order so that we as humans but also non human animals are feeling okay or so on this emotional part and I think this is Not only very interesting.
So from a research point of view, it's really fascinating. It's very challenging as well, since we do not use language as a means to communication, but it is super interesting. And at the same time, it's really relevant because this is so important. And what has been so long neglected to look at the inside, let's say of the animals in terms of emotions of effective states more generally.
So the combination of having a very interesting, but also very relevant and important research field is what really. Inspires me to do my work
[00:03:08] Host: and I think it's really interesting that you have the PhD looking at emotion and then also the veterinary background because the emotional life and physical health are so closely connected and so being able to link those things together.
I think it's really important.
[00:03:24] Guest: I agree. Just think that it is so often. Seen as long as healthy, everything is okay, and we clearly know from ourselves that even if we are healthy and not in pain or not having broken bones or whatever we could have physically, that still you can feel lonely, you can feel depressed, you can feel bored, so this on its own is not enough, so What you often hear, especially with farmed animals, that, yeah, but they are producing and they're growing and they're healthy, but that doesn't mean they are not suffering.
Exactly.
[00:03:55] Host: We feel like the well being is very important, regardless of whether or not it increases production. Of course, you have to get other parties on board to make those changes and that makes it more challenging. Historically, the focus in animal welfare has been on reducing or eliminating suffering.
suffering. However, more recently, maybe in the last 20 or 30 years, there's been a recognition that eliminating suffering is not enough and that we also need to promote positive emotional states. But as you alluded to earlier, it's much harder to assess and measure positive internal states than it is to measure things like access to food and water and proper medical treatment.
So how do we begin to think about what positive welfare looks like in, in?
[00:04:43] Guest: Yeah, so I would like to go a little bit back in history of animal welfare science, basically. And it's interesting because the development is often mirroring what we see in human psychology as well. First, in animal welfare science, we didn't have this effective state or the emotion component so much.
So we were more focusing on this physical aspect. And then yeah, it's difficult to really say which is the date, but then let's say in the late seventies, eighties, there started to be an interest in animal emotions as well. But for a long time, or on. the negative side. So for example, pain going along with a lot of husbandry procedures, for example, also stress let's think about slaughtering, but also just keeping them in the housing conditions, to be honest.
And as you said, so again, there is no specific, but let's say in the beginning of this century, now it's not enough to not suffer. There is more to a good life. So we should also have positives in our lives. And this actually mirrors. a development from positive psychology in humans, which was again a bit earlier and also these thoughts of not just treating pathologies, but also making us stronger, more resilient and to deal also with challenges.
And this is now a development we have recently also in non human animals. And actually, just since a few years ago, it has really taken off. So for example, there's a lot of funding now available and big positive animal welfare. So it's not a niche anymore. It's really getting off. Yeah, that is very difficult because there's different approaches.
You could think about just the positive emotions, let's say, or if we talk about longer term states, but It's also in humans, it's a question, is it only about feeling good, or is it also about having meaning in life? Genetic versus the eudaimonia approach, and which one are we taking? Also for humans, there are different opinions on that.
What matters more? Could we also have, there is this sort of exclusion? experiment. Just getting drugs and being happy all the time, does it make a good life? Is a good life more and having meaning, having relationship with others? And so these are now all questions we also tackle in positive animal welfare science.
[00:07:04] Host: Yeah. And I know that there's been, I've seen discussions in the literature as well about similar to just medication, being happy all the time, but also breeding an animal. If you breed an animal that just doesn't seem to have any stress. But maybe spends all their time lying around doing nothing. Is that enough?
Or do we really need to focus on things like relationships and engagement and meaning and all of that? And we're definitely going to get into all of that today. I did want to ask you to, if you can elaborate on hedonic pleasure, Versus eudaemonia, because I think probably not all of our listeners know the distinction between those two things.
[00:07:42] Guest: Yeah, so let's try to keep it easy. This hedonic approach is basically maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. So it's really on this emotional side. And eudaemonia more having also that it's not only about how you feel, but also about having Things that have meaning for you in life, it could be in terms of, for example, our job and that we feel as it has a meaning to us.
For example, I feel like that's about my job, right? It's about, as we said, relationships. It's about what you do also in your free time, like having a meaningful life and not just being. On drugs, people eat like a new thought experiment that we also have with animals. Is it enough to just be happy all the time?
And is that actually possible? Because then the question also starts having other analysis. Do we also need to experience a little bit negative in order to value the positive? For example, a friend of mine, she's philosopher, Susanna Monceau and I, we wrote a book chapter on the thought experiment of disenhancing animals.
So that means we thought, is it something we would like to have? It's not yet possible to have animals that are not able to experience any negative emotions. And in our paper, we showed that we don't think it is what we want to have. And that relates also to what you said about the breeding. Like we really then don't give them access to a meaningful, good, a good life.
And that is something we should not forget, but most of the research at the moment is focusing more on the hedonic way of thinking about how our animals feel, animals feeling in certain circumstances, and how can we make sure that they are safe. It's not only about not suffering, but also about promoting them.
[00:09:30] Host: Yeah. And so there's so many directions I could go in with this. So I think I'm going to start with this issue of measurements. And I know that this conversation has happened in the research world as well, but most of the people who listen to this podcast are companion animal people. And most of those are Dog trainers or living with dogs or both.
And there is definitely an argument in the animal training field that we shouldn't focus on cognition and emotion and that inner subjective experience because they're so hard to measure. And instead, we should focus exclusively on measuring observable behavior. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that, and if you can talk, clearly you think that inner experience is important, but can you address that concern that people have about we can't really know what's going on inside?
If that is a, first of all, do you agree that we, that we can't really know, and also is the fact that it's so difficult to measure good enough reasons to not even try?
[00:10:35] Guest: Yeah, that's a complex topic. I agree that we don't have direct access to the feelings, the subjective experience of another individual, but this is the same for humans as well.
So I cannot look into you, for example. We as humans have the advantage of language. It's not that animals don't have a language, but we at least have language. So we can communicate between each other. You can tell me how you're feeling. You can also lie. But the truth, and then I have a better understanding.
This is of course a big challenge in animals. However, we are pretty lucky because this feeling, this subjective experience goes always along with changes in cognition. So let's have an example. If we as humans will. through a park or wherever, and we suddenly meet a tiger that escaped from the zoo. The feeling we feel is probably something like horror or panic, but in there we would not have direct access.
But what will also happen is that we will change our facial expressions and In terms of behavior, we will probably be very tense. We will probably start running or to freeze. If someone else would then look at our blood, we would have probably a lot of stress hormones in the blood. Our breathing goes very quickly.
We have an increased heart rate. And in terms of cognition, before we were perhaps, for example, focusing on butterflies and flowers around us, and now we are just looking where can we run. There are changes going along with this subjective experience. So we say an emotion actually has all these components.
It consists of these four components, the subjective experience or the feeling, and then behavior, cognition, and physiological changes going along with it. Our advantage, because then we can use these changes and indirectly infer what the feeling of the individual might be. And of course, if we look at different components from different sides and they all show in the right or the same direction, that will of course help us to have a clearer picture.
Yes, it is more challenging. We cannot just ask each other, okay, how are you feeling today? But we can infer from behavior, physiological and cognitive changes. The feeling might be, and then it's of course a question of, or a matter of wording, might not be the same feelings.
[00:13:03] Host: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
[00:13:04] Guest: Might be tricky to say something about sadness, or when I do the study on boredom in pigs, chronic boredom, we don't know whether chronic boredom in pigs is exactly the same as in humans.
But to be honest, we also don't know this completely. Between humans,
[00:13:20] Host: yes. Yeah. And I think that's such an important point because we can a conversation with another human being and they can say, feel sad or I feel stress, but that doesn't mean that their experience is the same as our experience that we're labeling as sad or stress like my, I frequently have this conversation where I will say something like you're mad and he says, no, I'm not mad.
I'm frustrated. And to me, but I understand that. I understand the technical differences between mad and frustrated, but when labeling my own emotions, I don't really make that distinction, but that's clearly an important distinction for him. So we, it's easier, or at least it seems easier to make these evaluations in, but I agree that no matter what, We can't really know what any other experience is.
And I completely agree with you, by the way, that subjective experience is very important. From my perspective as someone who works with companion animals, we're working with pets that are living with companion animals and are often complaining about certain behaviors, it's very difficult to change the behavior of the animal without also looking at the subjective experience, because the cognition and the emotion are driving a lot of behavior.
Yes, external events matter, of course, and reinforcement and punishment matters, but it's not the whole picture. If we're only focusing on reinforcement and punishment, I think we're missing so many potential. Avenues for changing behavior and improving well being. Mm hmm. Yeah. One of the things that you've written about is the importance of looking at individual differences when it comes to positive welfare.
Much of the current research right now is focused on conducting. They are comparing groups in different conditions, for example, an enriched environment versus an unenriched group, their environments, and they report their sort of group means and compare the different groups. But if you look at the data, there's a lot of variation within each group.
I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how this impacts research design or how it should impact research design and interpretation. Yeah.
[00:15:38] Guest: Yeah. That's also a tricky one to be on, because everyone who lives with dogs or horses or animals in general, it was completely the same when we had a pretty close relationship to the pigs in our vortem project.
They have different personalities, they are all individuals and, Even though they look much more similar than, for example, many do, they are as different as dogs are too. Everyone who has a close relationship with animals does. I guess you don't find anyone who disagrees that there are individual differences and all these animals have personalities.
They're completely different from each other. And then there comes science and tries to say something more general about the effect of treatment. And, I think that's important, too, because we need to get some general knowledge. What does it mean if you live in a barren or an enriched housing complex? And what I still think is important that this variation that you were also talking about is not just noise.
And this variation comes from individuals being different. This makes our life sometimes more difficult because the one size fits all solution does not necessarily work. We need to adapt. I think in training, that's the typical thing. Dog and horse training as well, but also like when we train our pigs for the task, you need really to adapt to the individual because if one plan for everyone, that will not work out probably, or it will take much longer, or it will frustrate animals and trainers.
It's super. relevant to take into consideration these individual differences. But it depends on the research question you're asking that you also need to call groups and that you can make general statements. Because for example, our research also meets the foundation for example, changes in law. So if you can show all animals or if you keep animals in this fair housing, most of them will be like this and that.
And if you keep them in range, it will be so much more improved. So it's important to have, to be able to make general statements, but it's also important to realize that these data come from individuals who are as individual as
[00:17:45] Host: we are at the end. And I think that's a really important point because I think this is one of the challenges, again, working with companion animals and.
Having a lot of animal professionals that are not necessarily scientists, understanding the science is really important. And I think it's also really important that the professionals understand that when you're looking at the research results of a paper, that does not necessarily apply to every individual animal, but that it also doesn't make those results invalid.
It's holding both of those things together, right, is that It is true that increasing enrichment generally increases well being, and it's possible that some animals, this is maybe not the best example because I think most animals really do benefit from enrichment, but let's say you have an animal that's been living its entire life in a barren environment, if you then take that animal and suddenly put them into a very enriched environment, that could cause a lot of stress.
Because it's so different from what they're used to, especially if you're doing things like adding in social interactions that they are not used to having. And so, one of the skills that we have to learn as scientists is how to take those research results and when to generalize and when not to generalize and thinking about when might there be exceptions, or there are certain cases where this is usually going to be true, but other cases where it won't be.
I think it's just helpful for people to learn that. And I think a lot of people get frustrated, not scientists, maybe scientists do too, but a lot of non scientists get frustrated because they say, okay, that research says this, but I have these cases where that's not true. And, Both of those things can be true and valid at the same time.
Yeah, absolutely. And so one of the things that you have looked at is domestic or cognitive bias and optimism. And we've talked about this on the podcast before, and I talk about this a lot in class, but in case people don't know, cognitive bias tests are basically looking at If an animal is more optimistic, which means they're generally assuming positive outcomes in cases of uncertainty, or if they're more pessimistic, which means they're generally anticipating negative outcomes in cases of uncertainty.
And what we know from previous research is that increased well being often results in more optimism. And there's a lot of research out there on using cognitive bias tests to assess well being. And again, they're often comparing groups. So these animals that are in the enriched environment show more optimism, these animals that are in the barren environment.
show less optimism, and then they're comparing the means between groups. And I'm wondering, is it possible, because I get this question a lot, is it possible to use that kind of cognitive bias test to assess well being in an individual? Because what are we comparing it to, if we're trying to do that? And if it's not possible, do you have other thoughts on trying to assess?
being in individuals? I know that's a huge question.
[00:20:47] Guest: Yeah, unfortunately, it's not really possible because as you said, it's always relative. It's the problem here or why it is relative. You could of course, but yeah, you can have some point what is the mean and if you are above or below. But the problem is that we are working with rewards, either low rewards or on the negative side when you would What you need in order to be able to really say what you predict when there's uncertainty is that your reward is exactly as rewarding as your non reward or your punisher.
And this is not so easy to decide. You might have in general more, let's say optimistic, and I know no one will see me, but it's now an inverted comma. So yeah, optimistic in the sense of showing more goal responses. So showing more. expectation of the positive, just because that is often our case, because we don't really use punishers.
So the animals are more likely to say, okay, I will go, I will give it a try, it doesn't cost too much. But then they still find a difference with the other treatment group. But if you didn't have this treatment group, you would say they are all superb. Optimistic, but it's not correct to say it's just that there wasn't a real cost to it.
So it's not a 50 50 Chance biased in one side It can be the other way around that the reward is not as rewarding as the punishing and that's why I know you can only interpret judgment bias results when you have a comparison. That's what I
[00:22:22] Host: thought. So I'm glad you confirmed that because that's the answer I've been giving to people, but I wasn't sure if it was correct.
So, so obviously we can do things like look at body language and try and interpret body language when we're looking at well being in individuals. Are there other ways of assessment that you think are helpful in trying to make a determination about the welfare of a specific individual.
[00:22:46] Guest: I guess it depends a lot then also on the species, of course, how much knowledge we have already, for example, in body language, like dogs and horses, like also about tail wagging, and so we know much more than, for example, in pigs.
So it depends a lot on the species and what we know about it. Then I think, yeah, behavior is, of course, the first and the most easy to detect compared to, for example, doing heart rate or It's probably not each dog owner being around or the dog is not running around with all these recordings. Also, all the physiological measures, they usually take more efforts to take.
And then on an individual basis, I guess what is the advantage here is, especially when we think about companion animals, that you see a change over time and differences. And I guess that is. What is relevant and what is good and that's why also dog owners, horse owners, animal owners in general often have a feeling for if there is something going wrong just because they know their animal in normal life and now they see it.
a change and that's what we don't have for example when we were with animals where we cannot even differentiate between individuals, let's say playing hands with 10, 000, 100, 000 chickens. You cannot say she was not good because we don't know who she is. was actually, so that's more difficult, but I guess if we know the individuals we are working with, the change over time, that doesn't tell us anything yet about the balance or is it positive or negative, but this is definitely something that we can pick up on and then think about further what does it tell us.
[00:24:26] Host: So implementing maybe some kind of intervention and then measuring some aspect of behavior over time to see if it's increasing or decreasing.
[00:24:35] Guest: Yes, absolutely. And time budgets, for example, are also something that might change. Just thinking now, if, if, if an animal suddenly, After something has happened, they're stressed and not lying down for a long time, not sleeping, more, just, more restless, for example.
Changes in time budget can also indicate something.
[00:24:55] Host: That, yeah, that's a great point. So a time budget for the listeners is basically, How much time does an animal spend in any particular behavior? And so, we were off air at the beginning about how my dog unfortunately is not feeling well right now, and one of the ways that I know that, so changes in body language, but his time budget has changed.
So, he's spending a lot of time, for example, standing around, not moving, which is very abnormal for him. That is something, or you can look at from a more positive aspect, right, you can look at, How much time is the animal spending interacting with other animals? How much time are they engaging in play? Or I think engagement is a really good thing to look at too, is how are they engaging with their environment?
Are they choosing to engage with their environment? Are they trying to avoid engaging with the environment? And then combining that with observing body language to try and get at what that subjective state might be.
[00:25:50] Guest: Absolutely. I think that's a worthy one. And one aspect that just came into my mind, especially when we talk about individual differences, not perhaps for the assessment, but about how to take them into consideration, is choice.
And that is something I think is also very relevant in companion animals, where the conditions are usually very different from, for example, farmed animals. My question is still about how much choice does my dog, for example, have. Just thinking about dog food, just looking back to old dogs from my childhood.
Actually, of course, they got good food. We made sure they are all nutritious and so on, but they got the same food all over their life, basically. There was more variation and looking back, I didn't really ask for it. them. Do you like it? And do you always like the same? Even if you like it, do you like it to have your whole life?
Even if you like, want to eat chocolate all the time? And I think it was very nice in our pigs. We saw that when the pigs were older, we could train them with chocolate, rose raisins, for example, but when they're older, despite showing very Individual differences, they also wanted to have a change of reward with innocence.
So, equality, for example, they wanted to have something sweet. How do we know just because they stop performing and we try to be creative, okay, how do we make them go again? Only chocolate is too much sweet, probably, so one only went for salad. And it's not only about food, of course, but also just thinking about dogs.
The choices they have, when do you go out, when do you go out with your dog, it's usually a human choice and most of the time, not a dog choice. So I think choice is also something to consider also when thinking about individual differences.
[00:27:31] Host: Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. And we certainly see that in dogs too, not all dogs, but certain dogs where I feel like we have to change up the reinforcer a lot in order to maintain that motivation, which may mean.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it could be a reinforcement issue. It could also be a motivation issue in general where maybe we need to look at why do we have to try so hard to motivate this animal. But for some dogs I think they really do, they just get bored with the same treats over and over again. I would. So yeah, and again talking about individual differences, so I have two dogs.
I have a beagle mix who basically Sleeps, eats, and humps shit. Like those are his three top priorities in life. And then my Australian Shepherd, too much wants to do whatever we're doing. He'll go on walks and that's fine, but he doesn't have any particular strong motivation to do that. He likes to be outside, but if we're not outside, he doesn't stay outside for nearly as long.
And so, we have to, it's really important to look at that individual train for food. He will do things for food, but his most important reinforcer is being with us and play. Which is also being with us. Oh, it's just his preferred way of being with us. And yeah, and that can improve well being too, by giving them access.
And we're going to talk about this more in a second when we start talking about flow. But I have one more question before we get to flow, which is the. The thing that I'm most excited to talk about, there are some dog trainers in the field and probably other species, like I would imagine this horse training is far behind dog training when it comes to the use of positive reinforcement and thinking about the welfare of the horse, but I do have a concern that some people may use this idea of individual differences to justify inhumane treatment.
So some of the trainers. At least in the United States that use a lot of punishments will make this argument that not all methods work on all dogs, so individual differences, but they will use that then to justify the use of a versus in behavior modification. And I guess, let me just say, for me, I think, from what I've.
Seen and read, I think that often the reason that positive reinforcement isn't working in those cases is because of what we were talking about earlier, that these other aspects of emotion and cognition and stress are not being addressed. And that needs to happen first. to set up the stage for motivated behavior, but given the importance of individual responses, how do we balance minimum standards of care with the needs of the individual?
So if someone is saying, we tried using positive reinforcement, but it just doesn't work with this dog, is there a way to, we still need to set minimum standards of care. Right? So how do we balance that? Like, where do you, how do you decide where you draw the line in terms of this? These things are not for any individual.
[00:30:23] Guest: Yeah, I agree with you there that I think if the positive reinforcement, for example, doesn't work, then probably something is a problem. And we first need to understand it. The best thing is to solve these problems if we somehow understand them. What's going on? Now again, a little pick flip example, when we start training them and they are not habituated to be isolated, for example, and they are just positive reinforcement doesn't work.
They are not taking the reward. They are not interested. They are just like let me out here. And so I agree that this might happen, but then it's not because positive reinforcement doesn't work, but because we haven't put Underlying problem that hasn't been solved. This does, in my opinion, not justify saying, okay, now let's use punishers or positive punishment to be honest.
I don't think that would then work to be, doesn't change the underlying problem and we are not allowed. But if we now would start using positive punishment, I don't think this would at all because the pig is stressed and that's the. underlying reason. And so I feel that is not a good way of arguing. And as we talked about in the beginning, this general consequence we get from scientific studies, like in general, enrichment is better than, for example, and then there are individual differences.
And this is the same here. I don't think Just because not all individuals respond as strong to enrich as some do doesn't mean it doesn't justify to say okay, then let's go with the barren one. Perhaps it wasn't the right enrichment. Perhaps they are looking, perhaps they were, as you said before, overwhelmed because it was way too much for them because of their prior experience.
Prior experience, what they have experienced during their life is so important to reflect on too. It is much more complex, usually, than just saying, okay, then let's use punishment.
[00:32:14] Host: Yes, I'm always telling my students that it's complicated, it depends, and we need more research. Yeah, it is like that. Like life.
Exactly. And what I'm thinking as we talk through this is that I think, at least for that particular example, that the answer is if the reinforcer is not working, We need to take a step back and look at what else is going on that is interfering with the motivation or the animal's ability to engage in the behavior and how can we address that instead of finding a way to force the behavior, essentially.
[00:32:46] Guest: Absolutely. For example, a human animal relationship, perhaps something is completely wrong here and the animal has completely scared of because of prior experience or something like that, things like that then need to be first tackled before. Yeah. I agree. All right. So
[00:33:01] Host: I'm very excited to talk about flow.
So I'm going to give a little introduction for the listeners and then we'll jump into the details. So positive reinforcement has become very popular in dog training, which I think is a good thing. And to grossly oversimplify things. We ask a dog for a behavior and then we reinforce the desired responses, often with food.
This is by far the most common and standard approach in positive reinforcement trainers. However, recently myself and many other trainers and behavior consultants have started to question this approach as the gold standard. Because we feel like something is Missing that we're not looking at the whole picture.
And for me, I think part of what was missing was this focus on providing opportunities for internally motivated behaviors. In other words, giving the animal the opportunity to engage in a behavior simply because they want to without any attempted manipulation of that behavior. by humans. And so I was very excited to read this article that you co authored with Jason Yee called Animals in Flow Towards the Scientific Study of Intrinsic Reward in Animals.
So can you start off by defining intrinsic reward and then, you Defining flow.
[00:34:17] Guest: Intrinsic reward is basic compared to reward that he did something just or intrinsic motivation is something that you are motivated to do something just for the sake of doing something you don't get any in humans, for example, you don't get any money, you don't get a good reputation.
I don't know. You don't get a medal or something like that, but you're just doing it because it is actually hard to do it. And in animals, as you said already, mostly it would. Be you don't do it because of food, but you enjoy what you're doing. And I guess every one of us knows this feeling of doing something, being completely zoomed in and losing track of time and now we're getting into flow already, losing track of time, being completely focused on something that we really enjoy doing and this again.
Individual differences is important, yes. Might be completely different from everyone. We are talking to just everyone who listens now. It might be that you get more into flow when you're reading. It might be that you're a surgeon and you get into flow while you're doing a super complicated surgery. It might be that you're like, Climbing up a mountain and you really get into the flow there or dancing, playing chess.
There are many different compounds from, from the human side. Flow is the challenge of the situation you are exposed to fits the skills you have. So what does it mean? It means that the task or the situation you're. confronted with. If it is too difficult, we all know it's overwhelming and we might become anxious.
If it is super simple, it might become super boring. So only if that's the perfect fit, and it's perhaps also always getting a little bit more difficult, like for example, in so you start with a single one, then you go to the medium because it's so boring, but then you jump too far and you're like, Oh my God, I have no clue.
And you get just frustrated. So flow means then. the right match between and challenge and you do it for the sake of doing it for the fun that goes along with it and not because you get food or money or whatever it
[00:36:27] Host: is. And in humans, we know that this is a very positive reinforcing experience, right?
[00:36:33] Guest: Absolutely. It has been even and this is the cornerstone of positive psychology. And humans really well aware How much better is your quality of life? If you are able to experience flow in your life and even companies take it as an advantage to say, then the question is at some point, how intrinsic it is, but no, you are more productive and you are better at work.
So there are even flow problems taken by companies so that their, yeah, that their workers are actually getting more in flow, less in flow. Distracted and more productive at the end.
[00:37:09] Host: Interesting. So now we come back to the topic of meaning and purpose. So do you think that flow is one way, or maybe even the primary way that animals might be able to experience meaning and purpose?
[00:37:22] Guest: Yeah, I didn't prepare you for this question. And I think you need to think about it because usually the positive thing about it is that it's positive. So definitely when it's described as this hedonic. It's basically to say it in easy words. You enjoy it, it's really nice. I think it can go along with purpose, it doesn't necessarily need to.
Just coming now from the humans, for example, dancing, I don't say it's purpose because I also enjoy it, but I don't think necessarily that it goes along with giving you the purpose in your life. But there might be other activities where you get into flow. For example, the search is probably more linked with an activity that gives you also, is that this is probably also a very different thing across individuals, again, to be able to make purpose in your life.
This is already a question that is very difficult to address, because there is not the one way that your life has purpose. can be very different ways of getting purpose in your life. But yeah, I guess it is a way, I'm not 100 percent sure I can go with the purpose for Shui and all activities, but it's definitely something that enriches your life and brings a component to it, that It's otherwise not there, if that makes sense.
[00:38:35] Host: Yeah, definitely. The reason I asked that question is because in one of the classes I'm currently teaching, this just came up like a couple of days ago where we were talking about meaning and purpose. We had just read the Littlewood article that just came out on the five domains and agency, and they talk a little bit about meaning and purpose in that paper.
And so we were trying to figure out, Hey, so first of all, can other animals experience meaning and purpose, and what might that mean? Look like and one of the things that one of my students brought up Christine was that watching her dogs Engage in hunting behavior. They seem so very focused on it And so in the zone and wondering we're just I don't know that we actually use the word flow in that conversation But wondering about is that fulfilling some kind of meaning or a purpose from them is just engaging in this It's very like sort of species typical behavior.
And I've had other students talk about hunting behavior as being something where dogs might be experiencing flow. And so I think where I was going with that, but it is, I'll say it's a concept that I really struggle with is what does it look like? Like if we wanted. Like, how can we create meaning and purpose?
Can we create meaning and purpose in animals lives? And of course, when we're talking about livestock, a very difficult thing to do, which I'm not saying it's not worth trying, but it's so much harder to do that. Especially, like you said, with chickens, where you have so many. But certainly with our companion animals, I think at the very least, it's a question that's worth wrestling with to see if we can come up.
Solutions to that. Although at the same time, I do worry a little bit about putting too much pressure on the dog. Like now, among all these other things, I have to give their dogs meaning and purpose because there's a lot of pressure on people to give their animals good lives, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
We don't want people to feed. become overwhelmed and then not do anything.
[00:40:26] Guest: Yeah, absolutely. And purpose and meaning is already such a big concept for us. Your purpose and meaning in life and what are you striving for, this is already such a big and again complex question. Yeah, I agree. But I also agree that bringing it into the discussions without now putting too much pressure that you think about and then you are like, okay, perhaps it would be good if my dog also had a purpose in life and does something meaningful and not just wait until I go for a walk with them.
[00:40:56] Host: Or wait until we have a training session where I'm telling them what to do. Yes. And then giving them food for it. And I don't want to leave the impression to people that I am against doing that. My dogs love their training sessions. But what I'm questioning is that enough, right? Is simply training with positive reinforcement enough to create this life worth living for our animals?
[00:41:18] Guest: Yeah. I completely agree. We also train all our animals with positive reinforcement and I think it's really, you can really enrich their lives. They laugh at it and it's super, but as you said, isn't there something else at least that could compliment this external rewarding experience? Yeah, I agree. And that flow potentially comes in and it's interesting that your students also.
Also mentioned the hunting, because when Jason and I started to think, where could Flo happen in the Animal Kingdom, just theoretically, we have no clue, we are just speculating, because there is nothing out, and we were also thinking about cooperative hunting, and lions or wolves, dogs now, so that was one thought, we had a cooperative hunting for some snow.
There was something we could imagine were there, so then really there is a big challenge. You really need to coordinate yourself. It's super difficult, like you, or not, it's unpredictable, let's say. You never know where this, for example, is moving at. You need to coordinate with the whole group, and you're super focused, and you're probably not thinking about anything else and not easily distracted.
So yes, they were examples, and we came up with two.
[00:42:27] Host: Previous podcast episode, I interviewed Patricia McConnell. I don't know if you're familiar with her, but she's a dog behaviorist and she does herding with her border collars. And we've talked about flow in herding is another place where that might come up.
[00:42:40] Guest: To be honest, the first project proposals Jason and I submitted and was unfortunately unsuccessful was on herding in dogs. Very cool. Flow induced by herding because this is the, example that you come up with when you think about, even the prosthesis, that was the one we saw was promising.
[00:43:00] Host: And that's interesting because that's the first place your mind went as well.
Yes. Let's talk a little bit more specifically about flow. There's been little to no research on flow in non human animals, but in your paper you talk about many related concepts that support the idea of flow. Can you talk a little bit about what are some of those concepts that are related to flow, like curiosity and play and things like that?
Yes, in the
[00:43:25] Guest: paper we tried to, that's how you need to do it in science. You need to make sure you're not just giving a new name to something that is already out there. I really thinking is flow something different from curiosity and a few examples. I think a good example is because play also in humans, like just thinking about the computer games or this morning we met with a person also doing research on game design, basically, and that plays a very big role.
So gaming or playing and, and flow is definitely interlinked. But the question we asked ourself is, doesn't, if you're playing, you're in flow, or do you need to play to be able to be, to get into flow? And we think, no, it's very often interlinked, but you can get into flow, for example, in humans, by reading a book, or by dancing, or climbing up a mountain, so different than play, and you can also play Not even ailing to get into flow.
For example, when I play games with my family, sometimes it's also just to be together and to your rules. It's not super challenging, but if you are just doing something together in a nice way, that would be like the whole time, like being challenged the whole time. It's not necessarily the case. So. That's how we try to go through all these concepts, for example, as you also said, curiosity.
Curiosity plays an important role because you want to find out more. You are intrinsically motivated. You don't get something immediately for finding out, you are just exploring. You might have benefits later in life because you have gained more information, but in the, there is no immediate reward. Yeah.
It's important to see what aspects play a role, for example, also agency to be engaged and engaged with the environment, doing something. There's definitely also a relationship or what also is a very nice one, I think, is the Eureka moment or the announcement. The moment when you are like, ah, this is how it So far, only two studies that we found in animals on its own, it's not yet flow, because flow is something longer lasting, it might be we match it a little bit like, you have a lot of fans, always when you get to a new challenge, and you're like suddenly, ah, this is how it works, okay, great, let's go, go on and continues.
There are different concepts that it's. probably play a role, but that are all not sufficient plain flow. It's not that flow is just a different term for these concepts, flow's different.
[00:45:56] Host: And also we know in terms of the question, can animals experience flow? And of course we can look at them. And observe them and say, Oh, I think hurting at least in certain instances, dogs may be experiencing flow while hurting, but we also want to try and back that up with research evidence.
And so we know, so play, curiosity, agency, the Eureka moment, all of those things seem to be, you know, related to flow, and we do see those things in non human animals. So that also makes an argument for investigating flow in animals, because if we were to say, here are these related concepts, but we haven't seen any evidence of animals doing these things, then it's hard to make an argument for seriously thinking about flow.
But because they do those things, then I think that provides good justification for exploring this and considering this an experience that other animals can have. And one that's probably worth pursuing and trying to support them and having those experiences since it is so reinforcing.
[00:46:59] Guest: Absolutely. I completely agree.
I just had one with the herding, which we also cover in the paper. Then Flow and addiction. Yes. So there is also, when I think about the ball junkies in the dogs, for example, that at least we should be aware that there is a slight risk that humans that think about gaming or potentially non human animals get too far into it.
And I was just thinking about the herding dogs, sometimes very engaged in one. We should keep that in mind as well.
[00:47:33] Host: That there's a balance there. I think you guys called that dark flow. Yes, I love that term. Dark flow in
[00:47:38] Guest: literature, yes, and it comes a lot from the gaming,
[00:47:41] Host: from the gaming. Right, yes, that makes sense.
Yeah, and I think gaming is a great example. I don't do a ton of online or computer gaming, but I do some, and I've definitely had experiences where I felt like I'm in flow, and I've definitely had experiences where I do not feel like I'm in flow, and that's Consisting with what you were saying about where it's, you're not automatically in flow just because you're playing, but you certainly can be.
And I think that idea of addiction, I can sometimes feel in life that I'm chasing after that flow. Right. And I think for me, it's generally a positive thing, but it's easy to see how it could turn into something that is maladapt and no longer improving wellbeing because it. become such a focus of that individual's life to the neglect of other things that are important as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So I just have a couple more questions. What are some thoughts that you have on how we might be able to induce flow? in our companion animals. What can we do to set them up to try to give them opportunities to experience flow or something like flow?
[00:48:45] Guest: Yeah, I think it's a bit different than what we are thinking about now because we're planning a study on flow in pigs.
Oh, I'd love to hear about that too. But I think it's a bit different if you want to induce flow on a scientific level, let's say, too. Or if you want to give your animal an opportunity, like your individual animal, an opportunity to experience it. The best example I want to give, but you took it already, is the herding.
Herding and hunting. But of course, that goes along with some other issues. And I guess you need to know your individual. Especially dogs are so different. Probably a little animal that doesn't want to. Or even in metal, the size, actually, there are some individuals who don't want to be super active physically or cannot be super active just from their morphology.
And then there are these crazy ones that want to really play and then move around the way you give them the opportunity to experience flow really depends on what. Your animal wants having an older animal that doesn't want to move, for example, too much. Don't give it a task, even the opportunity for a task where it's just running around.
You could even think about perhaps some are like to run or move a lot, like having physical exercise, but perhaps some really want more cognitive exercise. Then you need to play something more. cognitively without running around too much and then it's probably trying out and giving opportunities, I would think.
Yeah, keeping the individual as always nice. Yes. And then trying out, giving opportunities and basically ask, do you like that
[00:50:21] Host: or not? So coming, really coming back to choice and agency is looking at what they seem to enjoy, trying to give them more time for those things and then see what happens. Do they only want to engage with it a little bit or do they start to get really into it?
And one of the things we talk about. Is not always because dogs still have to live in our world and there are limitations and rules to at least have some opportunities where the animal is leading and we're letting them engage in what they want to engage in and supporting that I don't really mean giving them treats for doing it, for example, giving them the space and the permission to engage in, in those types of behaviors.
So one thing that comes to mind that people will sometimes do is they'll set up digging arenas. in their yard. So there's a specific place where you can dig in, or you'll get a kiddie pool, and you'll fill it with sand, and you'll bury stuff in there, and then they can dig in that, as opposed to, no, you're never allowed to dig anywhere because you're destroying my gardens.
Trying to find a way where you can give the dog that opportunity in a way that's not taking away something that's important to you.
[00:51:28] Guest: Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, we have different levels of flow tasks we are thinking of. And one of them is a routing task for the pigs, getting close to the dogs. Yeah,
[00:51:38] Host: similar opportunity.
So yeah, I want to give you a chance to talk about what unanswered questions are at the top of your mind right now, or what you think we should be focusing on next. And you're welcome if you want to talk about. The pig research, you can do that. I don't know if you're at that stage yet.
[00:51:55] Guest: Yeah. So I think from a research side, there is still a lot to do in terms of animal welfare.
We still are very much lacking good indicators, for example, behavioral indicators. You need dog owners, but we need, for example, if you buy animal welfare friendly, when you have certified for something to give to the certifiers, actually to say these cows are these actually good or not good. So there is a lot to do, but it's moving and this is very nice and promising.
And then also not just the versions. But in general, this positive ass in life, and I think this actually goes to all animals. I don't want to say curious, but let's say companion animals, farm species, lab animals and laboratories, zoos. So this is the same basically everywhere. It's not just about minimizing suffering and giving them the bare minimum, but how do we keep them in a way they can have a good life.
And there's that. There's still a lot to do on both conceptual level things. Do we want to give them? What does it mean to have meaning? Just on the theoretical level, but then also if we say, yes, we want to give them meaning. So what does it mean in practice now in day to day's life? Like how do we give meaning to our dog?
And there's still a lot of discussion and research there, but it's really nice that there is still so much progress and so much support, for example, also from politics who see that society is changing. Also now with respect to the farmed animals, but there is more awareness of where our products we eat and come from.
And there is pressure from society, fortunately. And this is because, as always, these things are only for, in the farmed animal industry and with companion or owners there is a different motivation potentially also but soon that there is some change in society some pressure coming from it that we want to have a change and then of course if we See it in the bigger picture, especially with farmed animals, the sustainability issues that will go together with it.
And these are things we need to solve also relatively quickly. Yeah. To avoid the disasters.
[00:54:04] Host: I agree with all. I'm thrilled to learn that there's funding available because that's always an issue. People have to have money to do this. And so that's really promising that funding is now available. And so I'm really hopeful and looking forward to the research that should be coming down the pipeline because I know there's a lot more to learn that will help us do better for the animals that we live with.
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