Stimulating Minds: Investigating the motivation of calves to engage with cognitive enrichment through participation measures
Authors: Georgiana Amarioarei and Marjorie Cellier and Nadège Aigueperse and Tania Wolfe and Nicolas Montigny and Hayda Almeida and Elise Shepley and Abdoulay Baniré Diallo
Date: 2025-05-01
Status: Published
Introducing cognitive enrichment from an early age has the potential to enhance an animal's capacity to learn both simple and complex tasks, promote neural plasticity, and support cognitive development. This is applicable for young cattle who are at a critical stage in their development and could benefit from the influence cognitive enrichment has on their ehavioral expression. This study aims to explore the motivation of weaned dairy calves to engage with cognitive enrichment by analyzing measures of participation over time. Furthermore, we will investigate whether calf performance in the form of measured success rates is a factor influencing the motivation to participate. We hypothesize that providing the opportunity to access cognitive enrichment will have an effect on the calves’ motivation to participate in cognitive challenges and engage with the nrichment. Additionally, we expect there to be a correlation between participation and ability to solve the cognitive tasks. Our study involved a total of four pairs of weaned calves (n=8). The experimental groups were presented with three variations of a puzzle box, each equipped with unique challenges that offer different solutions (push, slide, pull). These boxes were provided to the calves over the span of nine days in an isolated corridor behind their pen. We investigated participation through measuring the frequency to visit the enrichment and we measured the success rates of each calf by processing a predetermined pass/fail criteria of daily performance. Our preliminary results show that on day one of the experiment, the average participation was 2.7 ± 1.4 with a success rate of 58 ± 0.4%. By day nine, participation was 2.6 ± 1.6 with an average success rate of 76 ± 0.4%. These results indicate that there may be no notable change in participation level over time such that the animals are consistently motivated to access enrichment. Moreover, these results allude that there may be a progressive increase in performance success, possibly due to consistent participation. For future analysis, these results will be used in conjunction with the durations and latencies of use, to investigate further potential correlations between participation and success rate.