Pigs can play video games with their snouts, scientists discover

Pigs can be trained to play simple video games, scientists have discovered, demonstrating the animals’ potential for a “remarkable” level of behavioral and mental flexibility. A BBC report contained a wealth of information about the piggy players, taken from a research paper published in a journal article on Frontiers in Psychology. The paper describes an investigation into whether pigs are able to play a video game task with a joystick, in which four pigs – Hamlet, Omelet, Ivory and Ebony – are trained to move a joystick with their snouts to create a Cursor on the screen.

The pigs had to move the cursor to make contact with randomly placed walled targets, and a reward was given if the cursor bumped into a target. However, researchers noted that the pigs showed a “high degree of social motivation to perform the task” and continued to play the game even when no food reward was provided due to social encouragement from the trainer.

Image Credit: Eston Martz / Pennsylvania State University

“This type of research is important because, like all living things, the way we interact with pigs and what we do with them affects and is important to them,” says Dr. Candace Croney, lead author of the study.

The data analysis of the game sessions showed that neither Hamlet nor Omelet achieved significant performance on three-walled targets, but performed “above chance” on single-walled and double-walled targets, with “78 and 70% correct responses” to the latter. . Ivory and Ebony were both more successful than coincidentally expected on three-walled targets, but had a greater game gap on the single-walled targets.

Ultimately, the researchers were convinced that the pigs had the capacity to acquire the video game task with a joystick, although they also noted that future studies of the cognitive behavior of domesticated species could benefit from the use of touchscreens or other advanced computer interface technology. dexterity and visual impairment, as all four subjects were prescient in this case.

Similar experiments have been conducted with chimpanzees and monkeys, which have proven to be even more skilled, with their opposable thumbs and individually moving fingers giving them an advantage. However, it remains to be seen what can happen when a monkey plays video games in its own mind. Elon Musk may have the answer for us soon, as he claimed that one of his companies implanted a device into a monkey’s brain and hopes it can play ‘mind pong’ with another cyborg monkey.

Adele Ankers is a freelance entertainment journalist. You can reach her via Twitter