Attribution of emotions to animals can affect human–animal interactions and dictate animal welfare laws. However, little is known about the factors that influence these attributions. We investigated the effect of belief in animal mind, pet ownership, emotional intelligence, eating orientation, and gender on the attribution of different emotions to a variety of species, from different taxonomic classes, considered as Pet, Use (e.g., used for food, experimentation), or Pest animals. Three hundred and forty-seven participants, aged between 16 and 65 years, completed a questionnaire that measured their belief in the capacity for animals to experience seven primary and secondary emotions. The results showed that attribution of emotions to animals is inconsistent. The ambiguity appears to hinge, in part, upon an animal's functional category and their perceived place in the commonly supposed, though inaccurate, linear hierarchy of species. Nonetheless, the wide range of emotions that were attributed to all species highlights the complex and potentially disorganized thoughts that humans have concerning animals. Belief in animal mind was found to be the strongest and only predictor of emotion attribution to animals in general, but is probably because both are part of the same underlying construct. Ownership of some species—rabbits, horses, rodents and birds—mediated the emotions attributed to that particular species. We conclude that ambiguous attitudes influence the standards of welfare for animals used by humans and that the dichotomous attitudes permit exploitation and welfare violations against animals. Greater understanding of emotion attribution has the potential to improve humane education methods, and suggestions for future research are made.

The current research examined dog's ability to dsicriminate between different amounts of food. Using a two alternative forced choice procedure dogs werre required to discriminate between a constant amount of 4 pieces of food and another amount that varied across a range from 1 to 7 pieces. The dogs reliably selected the larger of two alternatives. Discrimination was better when there were fewer rather than more than 4 pieces of food available on the varying alternative. Specifically, 1 was discriminated from 4 more easily than 4 was discriminated from 7 pieces of food. These results confirmed the ability of dogs to discriminate food amount on a psychophyical choice procedure.

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