Researchers have discovered that pigs can play video games using their snouts.
According to a new study, the experiment was conducted with four pigs. The pigs were trained to play a simple game using a joystick similar to one that might be found in arcades.
"The pigs achieved the level of success they did on a task that was significantly outside their normal frame of reference in itself remarkable, and indicative of their behavioral and cognitive flexibility,” the study says. And when the joystick broke, the hogs “continued to make correct responses when rewarded only with verbal and tactile reinforcement from the experimenter, who was also their primary caretaker.”
Candace Croney, director of Purdue University’s Center for Animal Welfare Science told HuffPost that the study indicated that the swine were able to “think abstractly and do fairly advanced conceptual learning.”
She continued, “We could train them on how to manipulate the joystick and how to attend to the screen but they had to independently figure out the connection between what they were doing and where … their behavior was actually having an effect.” She said, “You cannot teach that. The animal either figures it out or they don’t. And there is nothing in the natural behavior or evolutionary history of the pig that would have suggested they could do this to any degree.”
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