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Scientists have revealed that pigs are able to learn to play simple video games, indicating the animals are smarter than previously thought, so researchers in Canada were able to teach four pigs to manipulate the joystick with their nose and move the screen cursor to reach one of the four targeted walls.
And according to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, each of the four pigs showed some conceptual understanding of both the game and the relationship between the joystick control movement and the cursor.
This despite the fact that pigs are far-sighted animals and don’t have a thumbs up with game, a feat that animal behavior experts have called “remarkable.”
Previous studies have shown that pigs are capable of different types of learning, from simple obedience commands such as “come” and “sit” to more complex behaviors.
One study showed that pigs can use mirrors to help them find food hidden in a container, while another study found that pigs can use tools.
“It is not an easy task for an animal to realize that the behavior it performs has an effect elsewhere,” said Candice Crony, senior author and animal behavior expert at Purdue University in Indiana. .
“The ability of pigs to do this to what extent should give us a break to see what else they can learn and how that learning might affect them,” Crony added.
Professor Crony and his colleagues worked with two Yorkshire pigs named Hamlet and an omelet in the study, and two panipento piglets, ebony and ivory, and the four pigs then learned to play an on-screen video game, in which the aim was to: use the joystick to maneuver an index finger towards four targets.
The researchers found that each of the pigs was able to perform the experimental task much more than chance, indicating that the animals were able to understand that the way the joystick was moved was related to the movement of the cursor on the screen.
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