title: Lateralization of behavior in dairy cows in response to conspecifics and novel persons.
abstract: The right brain hemisphere, connected to the left eye, coordinates fight and flight behaviors in a wide variety of vertebrate species. We investigated whether left eye vision predominates in dairy cows' interactions with other cows and humans, and whether dominance status affects the extent of visual lateralization. Although we found no overall lateralization of eye use to view other cows during interactions, cows that were submissive in an interaction were more likely to use their left eye to view a dominant animal. Both subordinate and older cows were more likely to use their left eye to view other cattle during interactions. Cows that predominantly used their left eye during aggressive interactions were more likely to use their left eye to view a person in unfamiliar clothing in the middle of a track by passing them on the right side. However, a person in familiar clothing was viewed predominantly with the right eye when they passed mainly on the left side. Cows predominantly using their left eyes in cow-to-cow interactions showed more overt responses to restraint in a crush compared with cows who predominantly used their right eyes during interactions (crush scores: left eye users 7.9, right eye users 6.4, standard error of the difference=0.72). Thus, interactions between 2 cows and between cows and people were visually lateralized, with losing and subordinate cows being more likely to use their left eyes to view winning and dominant cattle and unfamiliar humans.
authors: Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton 4343, QLD, Australia. Electronic address: c.phillips@uq.edu.au.
authors: C J C
authors: CJ
authors: Phillips
authors: Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton 4343, QLD, Australia; University for Applied Science, 8251 Dronten, the Netherlands.
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Oevermans
authors: Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton 4343, QLD, Australia; Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, CB3 OES, United Kingdom.
authors: K L
authors: KL
authors: Syrett
authors: Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton 4343, QLD, Australia; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-2016.
authors: A Y
authors: AY
authors: Jespersen
authors: Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, CB3 OES, United Kingdom.
authors: G P
authors: GP
authors: Pearce
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D002417:Cattle / Q000502:physiology*; D004924:Escape Reaction; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: dairy cow; dominance; hemispheric processing; visual lateralization