Rating scales, such as Likert scales, are incredibly flexible and intuitive tools for measuring individuals' rating of agreement with or relative preference for many types of stimuli. For humans, this typically involves ratings of agreement between end points representing distinct attitudes or beliefs; For example, strongly disagree to strongly agree. Nonverbal versions of Likert scales have also been presented to children, allowing them to indicate their degree of preference, pain, or happiness. However, before the current study, no known efforts had been made to develop a nonverbal rating scale for use with nonhuman animals. Such a scale would be a useful welfare tool, allowing nonverbal individuals to indicate not just relative preferences between pairs of items but their degree of liking for individual items. I present an outline of the steps taken to create such a scale for use with three zoo-housed gorillas. Two gorillas succeeded in associating preferred and less preferred foods with different response buttons but none of the gorillas were able to effectively use the neutral response button. It is possible that limits in gorillas’ capacity for conditional discriminations and/or conceptualization of constructs as abstract as “liking” impeded training. These data are relevant for understanding gorilla cognition and can inform continued efforts to create a tool for nonhumans to communicate their preferences to human caregivers in a more nuanced way than is currently possible.

中文翻译：

---

有什么不喜欢李克特的？制定非语言动物偏好量表 (NAPS)

评级量表，如李克特量表，是非常灵活和直观的工具，用于衡量个人对多种刺激的同意程度或相对偏好程度。对于人类，这通常涉及代表不同态度或信念的端点之间的一致性评级；例如，强烈反对到强烈同意。非语言版本的李克特量表也已呈现给儿童，让他们能够表明自己的偏好、痛苦或幸福程度。然而，在目前的研究之前，没有为开发用于非人类动物的非语言评定量表做出已知的努力。这样的量表将是一种有用的福利工具，它允许非语言个体不仅可以表明成对物品之间的相对偏好，还可以表明他们对单个物品的喜爱程度。我简要介绍了为三只动物园饲养的大猩猩创建这样一个秤所采取的步骤。两只大猩猩成功地将喜欢和不喜欢的食物与不同的反应按钮联系起来，但没有一只大猩猩能够有效地使用中性反应按钮。大猩猩在条件歧视和/或概念化抽象概念（如“喜欢”）方面的能力受到限制，这可能会阻碍训练。这些数据与理解大猩猩的认知有关，并且可以为继续努力创造一种工具提供信息，让非人类以比目前更微妙的方式向人类看护者传达他们的偏好。两只大猩猩成功地将喜欢和不喜欢的食物与不同的反应按钮联系起来，但没有一只大猩猩能够有效地使用中性反应按钮。大猩猩在条件歧视和/或概念化抽象概念（如“喜欢”）方面的能力受到限制，这可能会阻碍训练。这些数据与理解大猩猩的认知有关，并且可以为继续努力创造一种工具提供信息，让非人类以比目前更微妙的方式向人类看护者传达他们的偏好。两只大猩猩成功地将喜欢和不喜欢的食物与不同的反应按钮联系起来，但没有一只大猩猩能够有效地使用中性反应按钮。大猩猩在条件歧视和/或概念化抽象概念（如“喜欢”）方面的能力受到限制，这可能会阻碍训练。这些数据与理解大猩猩的认知有关，并且可以为继续努力创造一种工具提供信息，让非人类以比目前更微妙的方式向人类看护者传达他们的偏好。