A comparative cognitive scientific studies about psychological mechanisms of prosocial behaviour

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K20946
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cognitive science; Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: Takimoto Ayaka 北海道大学, 文学研究科, 准教授 (40726832)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 向社会行動 / 共感的反応 / 他者理解 / 情動伝染 / あくび伝染 / 注意状態 / 情動認知 / ウマ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we used horses, a prosocial animal species, to investigate empathic response and understanding of others which are considered to promote prosocial behavior. Our results can be summarized into four main findings. Firstly, horses showed increased yawning after observing humans yawning regardless of social closeness between them and humans. Contagious yawning is considered as a basic form of emotional contagion which supports empathic response. Secondly, horses showed understanding of human attentional states, and could choose and flexibly use effective begging behaviors depending on the context. Thirdly, horses were sensitive to human emotional cues and they refrained from following human gaze-shift when the human experimenter showed disgust on his/her face and voice soon after his/her gaze-shift Finally, horses recognized human emotion of both their caretakers and strangers cross-modally by integrating his/her face and voice.

Free Research Field

比較認知科学