Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/24973
Appears in Collections:Psychology Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Facial expression: An under-utilized tool for the assessment of welfare in mammals
Author(s): Descovich, Kristin
Wathan, Jennifer Wathan
Leach, Matthew C
Buchanan-Smith, Hannah M
Flecknell, Paul
Farningham, David
Vick, Sarah-Jane
Contact Email: sv2@stir.ac.uk
Keywords: refinement
animal welfare
facial expressions
emotion
communication
Issue Date: 2017
Date Deposited: 13-Feb-2017
Citation: Descovich K, Wathan JW, Leach MC, Buchanan-Smith HM, Flecknell P, Farningham D & Vick S (2017) Facial expression: An under-utilized tool for the assessment of welfare in mammals. ALTEX: Alternatives to Animal Experimentation, 34 (3), pp. 409-429. https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.1607161
Abstract: Animal welfare is a key issue for industries that use or impact upon animals. The accurate identification of welfare states is particularly relevant to the field of bioscience, where the 3Rs framework encourages refinement of experimental procedures involving animal models. The assessment and improvement of welfare states in animals is reliant on reliable and valid measurement tools. Behavioural measures (activity, attention, posture and vocalisation) are frequently used because they are immediate and non-invasive, however no single indicator can yield a complete picture of the internal state of an animal. Facial expressions are extensively studied in humans as a measure of psychological and emotional experiences but are infrequently used in animal studies, with the exception of emerging research on pain behaviour. In this review, we discuss current evidence for facial representations of underlying affective states, and how communicative or functional expressions can be useful within welfare assessments. Validated tools for measuring facial movement are outlined, and the potential of expressions as honest signals are discussed, alongside other challenges and limitations to facial expression measurement within the context of animal welfare. We conclude that facial expression determination in animals is a useful but underutilised measure that complements existing tools in the assessment of welfare.
DOI Link: 10.14573/altex.1607161
Rights: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is appropriately cited.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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