ReviewFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience2016
Making Decisions under Ambiguity: Judgment Bias Tasks for Assessing Emotional State in Animals.
Review in Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 102 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
102 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 266 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cognitive Bias Under Adverse and Rewarding Conditions: A Systematic Review of Rodent Studies.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Pooled it
- Judgment Bias Responses in Domestic Dog Puppies at 60 Days of Age.Veterinary sciences · 2026Article
- Characterisation of a touchscreen-based task for assessing cognitive judgement bias in mice: a new translational tool for affective state disorder drug screening.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Incorporating farm animal models for the study of neuropsychiatric diseases: Expansion of the possibilities.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Effects of enrichment removal on cognitive judgement bias of mice: a comparison of two paradigms.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- Balancing consistency and flexibility: exploring trait and state optimism in rats using the cognitive judgement bias test.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- Toutouwai display positive judgement bias when tested in the wild.Animal cognition · 2025Article
- The influence of regularly changing enrichment on the cognitive judgement bias of laboratory rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Approved Ambiguities: An Analysis of Applications for the Ethical Review of Animal Research in Sweden-Focusing on Harm, Benefit, and the 3Rs.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Optimism and pessimism: a concept for behavioural ecology.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Pharmacological agents and injection stress, but not social isolation, alter cognitive judgement bias in the mouse touchscreen operant chamber.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Through a Horse's Eyes: Investigating Cognitive Bias and Responses to Humans in Equine-Assisted Interventions.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- A Global Survey on the Perception of Conservationists Regarding Animal Consciousness.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- By your side: How social support affects training duration, task performance and behaviour of pigs in a Judgement Bias Task.Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2025Article
- Anticipatory Behaviour During the Approach to Feeding Times as a Measure of Horse Welfare.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Place conditioning as evaluation of affective valence in piglets.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Effect of pre-session discrimination training on performance in a judgement bias test in dogs.Animal cognition · 2024Article
- Are lateralized and bold fish optimistic or pessimistic?Animal cognition · 2024Article
- Rodent tests of depression and anxiety: Construct validity and translational relevance.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2024Review
- Finding biomarkers of experience in animals.Journal of animal science and biotechnology · 2024Review
42 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Judgment bias tasks (JBTs) are considered as a family of promising tools in the assessment of emotional states of animals. JBTs provide a cognitive measure of optimism and/or pessimism by recording behavioral responses to ambiguous stimuli. For instance, a negative emotional state is expected to produce a negative or pessimistic judgment of an ambiguous stimulus, whereas a positive emotional state produces a positive or optimistic judgment of the same ambiguous stimulus. Measuring an animal's emotional state or mood is relevant in both animal welfare research and biomedical research. This is reflected in the increasing use of JBTs in both research areas. We discuss the different implementations of JBTs with animals, with a focus on their potential as an accurate measure of emotional state. JBTs have been successfully applied to a very broad range of species, using many different types of testing equipment and experimental protocols. However, further validation of this test is deemed necessary. For example, the often extensive training period required for successful judgment bias testing remains a possible factor confounding results. Also, the issue of ambiguous stimuli losing their ambiguity with repeated testing requires additional attention. Possible improvements are suggested to further develop the JBTs in both animal welfare and biomedical research.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.