Developing a Preference Scale for a Bear: From “Bearly Like” to “Like Beary Much”

Abstract

A preference scale for use by nonhuman animals would allow them to communicate their degree of liking for individual items rather than just relative preferences between pairs of items. It would also allow animals to report liking for images of objects that would be difficult to directly interact with (e.g., potential mates and habitat modifications). Such scales can easily be presented using touchscreen technology. Few zoos have used touchscreen technology for species other than nonhuman primates. I present a description of efforts taken to create such a scale for use with a single zoo-housed American black bear (Ursus americanus). Although the bear did not reach a high level of proficiency with assigning preferred and non-preferred food items to categorical responses of “like” and “dislike,” she was able to learn how to use the like and dislike buttons differentially for a single preferred and less preferred food item and she selected the correct response button for the preferred item at above chance levels. These data contribute to our limited understanding of black bear cognition and suggest that conditional discriminations may be difficult for black bears. This finding can inform continued efforts to create a simpler tool for nonhumans to communicate their preferences to human caregivers in a more nuanced way than is currently possible. More generally, the current study contributes to the growing body of work supporting the use of touchscreen technology for providing enrichment to less studied species like bears.