A peek into animal cognition research with chicks and pigs

by Dr Kimberly Yvonne Brosche (UniPD)

Thursday 26 Feb 2026, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Rome

Sala Jappelli (Osservatorio astronomico di Padova)

The study of animal cognition explores how animals acquire and use information from the environment. Non-human animals often perform behaviors that seem “smart”, complex, or indicative of deeper insightfulness. However, confidently ascribing certain cognitive capacities, such as proto-counting, self-awareness or communicative abilities to animals is not trivial. Often, seemingly complex behaviors can be attributed to relatively simple cognitive mechanisms, such as associative learning. Animal cognition research aims at deducing underlying cognitive mechanisms from observable measures. My research focuses on farm animals, a group whose cognitive abilities are largely understudied. In this talk, I will address a selection of intriguing questions about farm animals’ minds. Focusing on numerical cognition, i.e., how animals process quantities and numerosities, I will present studies that helped us get a bit closer to unraveling how cognition has evolved.

 

Join Zoom Meeting  

 

https://unipd.zoom.us/j/82482883288?pwd=MVvmMWSGaiVrGMyAFOdyQG61OAcI7D.1

Meeting ID: 824 8288 3288 
Passcode: 072472