Emotion, Affective State and Animal Experience

Animal welfare domains, conceptions, or freedoms all recognize that the animal's own experience is key to determine the animal welfare impacts of conditions, environments, or procedures. Although researchers have studied animal stress for many years, we still have limited tools to determine how the animal perceives a certain situation, especially if that situation could potentially be positively valenced. There are many more aspects of animal experience are currently unknown, for example the plasticity of affective states, the cumulative impact of different experiences, or which key indicators can be used to determine positive emotions or affective states.

The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together state-of-the-art research that includes measures of affective state, emotion, or experience in livestock animal species that may provide more insights into the animal's perception of a certain situation. The emphasis should be placed on positive experience.

We welcome contributions that explore the assessment of positive emotions, affective states, or animal experience in a range of species. Authors are invited to outline recent developments and major accomplishments in the field and to identify knowledge gaps and challenges and how those could be addressed. This Research Topic invites manuscripts on, but not limited to the following topics:

1.) Behavioral and physiological indicators of (positive) affective states and cumulative experience

2.) (Positive) emotions in livestock

3.) Cognitive bias tests as a measure of affective states

4.) Resources and enrichment strategies to improve affective states

5.) Animal agency: choice and control as factors of animal experience

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Animal welfare; affective state; cumulative experience; emotional state; well-being

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.