Pigs are among the most cognitively sophisticated farm animals — their intelligence has direct welfare implications for the enrichment and social environments they require.
Pig intelligence has profound welfare implications. Cognitively sophisticated animals in barren, understimulating environments suffer more than less intelligent animals in the same conditions — they have more mental capacity to be frustrated by confinement and more awareness of their restricted circumstances. Research using cognitive bias tests — which reveal animals' underlying emotional state through how they interpret ambiguous situations — consistently shows that pigs in welfare-compromised intensive systems have measurably more negative emotional states than those in enriched environments.