Decoding (Human and other) Animals’ expression of their inner world: Insights into Mental Wellbeing
The mental health of animals is a vital aspect of their welfare and shapes our societal approach to treating them, from wildlife, farm, zoo and companion animals to laboratory and pest species. Positive emotions and good mental health are increasingly recognized as prerequisites for physical health in both animals and humans. Whereas research has traditionally focused on negative emotional states like pain, stress and deprivation, there is growing interest in understanding and recognizing positive mental health and its expression.
Our community of cross-disciplinary scientists seeks to explore how animals communicate their inner world across the full spectrum of emotions. Using knowledge from human behaviour, communication, robotics and psychology to draw parallels and identify species-specific similarities and differences, we intend to uncover patterns that are seen across humanity and animal species.
We will explore if and how animals express positive (complex) emotions, like emotion during play, or social emotions that may be experienced during for instance love, sharing or grooming. Furthermore, we want to see if we can develop an innovative big data approach towards cross species research, that goes beyond current methods used in welfare research that focus mostly on negative emotional states. By bridging physiological, behavioural, psychological and communication sciences, this research community aims to create a holistic understanding of animals’ mental lives.
The community is initiated by a group of researchers: Ingrid van Dixhoorn, Marc Bracke, Sanne Schoenmakers, Gabriel Beckers and Irene Kuling. For community building we aim to involve researchers from various universities and institutions like Wageningen University & Research, Eindhoven University of Technology, Utrecht University, Leiden University, Radboud University, Maastricht University, Donders Institute, KNAW humanities cluster, the Meertens Institute and others.
We are trying to organically grow this community with more scientists, who are interested in multidisciplinary collaboration, and would like to join this quest! Send us a message if you are interested in joining the community and follow us on LinkedIn to see what we organize to come together in real life and online to exchange knowledge.
Team members
Ingrid van Dixhoorn (WUR)
Marc Bracke (WUR)
Gabriel Beckers (UU)
Sanne Schoenmakers (Science to Society)
Irene Kuling (TU/e)
