image: Habituation and training of the ravens in the experimental compartments, Haidlhof Research Station, Austria. view more
Credit: Jessie E.C. Adriaense
Researchers report negative emotional contagion, or the coordination of emotional states between multiple individuals, in common ravens. Emotional contagion is a key element of social interaction and serves to convey information as well as generate empathy. Studying emotional response is complicated, however, by the dual components of arousal and positive or negative emotional state, given that the two components can vary independently. Jessie E.C. Adriaense and colleagues examined the transmission of emotional valence between pairs of ravens. The authors induced a positive or negative emotional state in demonstrator ravens by presenting them with appealing and unappealing food choices, removing one or the other, and observing raven behavior to assess emotional state. Observer ravens, which watched the emotional state of the demonstrator ravens, were then presented with an ambiguous reward. Observer ravens that watched negative emotional states judged the ambiguous stimulus negatively, whereas no similar judgment bias was seen in observer ravens that watched positive emotional states. According to the authors, the results expand on previous observations of birds at play and suggest emotional contagion, which in turn suggests convergent emotional evolution in birds and mammals.
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Article #18-17066: "Negative emotional contagion and cognitive bias in common ravens (Corvus corax)," by Jessie E.C. Adriaense, Jordan S. Martin, Martina Schiestl, Claus Lamm, and Thomas Bugnyar.
MEDIA CONTACT: Jessie E.C. Adriaense, University of Vienna, AUSTRIA; tel: 0043 677 619 422 41; e-mail: jessie.adriaense@univie.ac.at
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences