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Pigs: Sentience and Cognition

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The notes on this page show that pigs are sentient, capable of complex mental processes, and lead rich cognitive, emotional, and psychological lives.

Sentience is the ability to have feelings and emotions. It is important because it is the criteria by which we should determine if living beings of a particular species are deserving of moral consideration.

Closely related: Pigs: Numbers and General Information | Pigs: Injustices and Suffering

Points to Consider

Pigs possess long-term memory and are good at object recognition.

  • Pigs can distinguish between objects and remember objects for days, an indication of long-term memory.[1]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading

Pigs can think abstractly.

  • Pigs can think abstractly and can learn the meaning of symbols representing both actions and objects.[2]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
    • Pigs are able to understand and respond to combinations of symbols that represent phrases such as “fetch the ball.”[3]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading

Pigs can use tools.

  • Pigs have been recorded using tools, including sticks and bark to dig, and for other uses.[4]Root-Bernstein, Meredith, Trupthi Narayan, Lucile Cornier, and Aude Bourgeois. “Context-Specific Tool Use by Sus Cebifrons.” Mammalian Biology 98 (September 2019): 102–10.

Pigs have a sense of the future.

  • Pigs can anticipate the future, as evidenced by one study that found that they reacted negatively to high-pitched vocalizations when they knew an associated negative event was coming.[5]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading

Pigs are cognitively complex.

  • Dr. Donald Bloom of Cambridge University claimed that pigs “have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly [more so than] three-year-olds” [6]‘New Slant on Chump Chops’, Cambridge Daily News , 29 March 2002 quoted in Marco Kaisth, “Eating Stupid Pigs,” Philosophy Now, 2017; Also quoted in Curado, Manuel, and … Continue reading [7]An argument in support of the 3-year-old quote: Ameera Mills, “How Intelligent Are Pigs?” AnimalWised, August 12, 2018
  • Pigs have been taught to play video games, controlling the joysticks with their mouths or snouts.[8]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • Pigs also engage in play, which is considered to be an indication of cognitive complexity.[9]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • When raised without enough stimulation, pgs can develop behavioral abnormalities.[10]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • Pigs have been shown to make more positive decisions when given more stimulation, which is evidence that environmental enrichment can make them more optimistic.[11]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • Pigs are skilled at using spatial information—navigating mazes, for example.[12]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading

Pigs are aware of themselves and others.

  • Pigs have been taught to play video games, controlling the joysticks with their mouths or snouts, providing evidence of self-awareness, as the pigs understood that their actions were causing the cursor to move. Many animals, such as dogs, do not show these capabilities.[13]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • Pigs can discriminate between individuals, whether human or other pigs.[14]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • Pigs are able to find food that was only visible in a mirror.[15]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading

Pigs lead empathetic and emotional lives.

  • Pigs can recognize and pick up on each other’s emotions.[16]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
    • Pigs were trained to anticipate negative events when a certain piece of music was played. Others were not trained but exhibited similar stress responses to the nearby trained pigs when the music was played.[17]Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 … Continue reading
  • There are multiple reports of pigs saving their owners, which is evidence of both intelligence and empathy.[18]Ameera Mills, “How Intelligent Are Pigs?” AnimalWised, August 12, 2018 [19]Use this google search for specific examples

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Footnotes

References

References
↑1, ↑2, ↑3, ↑5, ↑8, ↑9, ↑10, ↑11, ↑12, ↑13, ↑14, ↑15, ↑16, ↑17 Marino, Lori, and Christina M. Colvin. “Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus Domesticus.” International Journal of Comparative Psychology, no. 28 (2015).
↑4 Root-Bernstein, Meredith, Trupthi Narayan, Lucile Cornier, and Aude Bourgeois. “Context-Specific Tool Use by Sus Cebifrons.” Mammalian Biology 98 (September 2019): 102–10.
↑6 ‘New Slant on Chump Chops’, Cambridge Daily News , 29 March 2002 quoted in Marco Kaisth, “Eating Stupid Pigs,” Philosophy Now, 2017; Also quoted in Curado, Manuel, and Steven S Gouveia. Automata’s Inner Movie: Science and Philosophy of Mind, 2019, 301.
↑7 An argument in support of the 3-year-old quote: Ameera Mills, “How Intelligent Are Pigs?” AnimalWised, August 12, 2018
↑18 Ameera Mills, “How Intelligent Are Pigs?” AnimalWised, August 12, 2018
↑19 Use this google search for specific examples