Tickle, Tickle, Tickle,
Jonathan Balcombe the animal behavior research scientist for Physicians and author of his newly published book ‘‘Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good.”
The book is the first to explore pleasure in non-humans.
For animals pleasure is ‘‘not just about finding food or avoiding pain. Animals have moments. They have good times and bad times.”
For example, in one study he discusses in the book, two groups of rats were analyzed. In one group, the rats were periodically tickled, the other group of rats were pet on the back.
After some time, the researchers took a single rat from each group and put it at one end of a box, and reached their hand into the other end of the box to measure how long it took for the rats to come to the hand. They determined that the rats that were tickled would come to the hand four times as quickly as the rats that were just petted, Balcombe explained.
‘‘They were just ecstatic,” he said.
...will be some interesting reading
The book is the first to explore pleasure in non-humans.
For animals pleasure is ‘‘not just about finding food or avoiding pain. Animals have moments. They have good times and bad times.”
For example, in one study he discusses in the book, two groups of rats were analyzed. In one group, the rats were periodically tickled, the other group of rats were pet on the back.
After some time, the researchers took a single rat from each group and put it at one end of a box, and reached their hand into the other end of the box to measure how long it took for the rats to come to the hand. They determined that the rats that were tickled would come to the hand four times as quickly as the rats that were just petted, Balcombe explained.
‘‘They were just ecstatic,” he said.
...will be some interesting reading
posted by Lee at 7:13 AM
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