Functional hemispheric asymmetry was evidenced in many species during sleep. Dogs seem to show hemispheric asymmetry during wakefulness; however, their asymmetric neural activity during sleep was not yet explored. The present study... more
Functional hemispheric asymmetry was evidenced in many species during sleep. Dogs seem to show hemispheric asymmetry during wakefulness; however, their asymmetric neural activity during sleep was not yet explored. The present study investigated interhemispheric asymmetry in family dogs using non-invasive polysomnography. EEG recordings during 3-h-long afternoon naps were carried out (N = 19) on two occasions at the same location. Hemispheric asymmetry was assessed during NREM sleep, using bilateral EEG channels. To include periods with high homeostatic sleep pressure and to reduce the variance of the time spent in NREM sleep between dogs, the first two sleep cycles were analysed. Left hemispheric predominance of slow frequency range was detected in the first sleep cycle of sleep recording 1, compared to the baseline level of zero asymmetry as well as to the first sleep cycle of sleep recording 2. Regarding the strength of hemispheric asymmetry, we found greater absolute hemispheric ...
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Background: Recent studies suggest that clinically sound ventriculomegaly in dogs could be a preliminary form of the clinically significant hydrocephalus. We evaluated changes of ventricular volumes in awake functional magnetic resonance... more
Background: Recent studies suggest that clinically sound ventriculomegaly in dogs could be a preliminary form of the clinically significant hydrocephalus. We evaluated changes of ventricular volumes in awake functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) trained dogs with indirectly assessed cognitive abilities over time (thus avoiding the use of anaesthetics, which can alter the pressure). Our research question was whether ventricular enlargement developing over time would have any detrimental effect on staying still while being scanned; which can be extrapolated to the ability to pay attention and to exert inhibition. Methods: Seven healthy dogs, 2–8 years old at the baseline scan and 4 years older at rescan, participated in a rigorous and gradual training for staying motionless (<2 mm) in the magnetic resonance (MR) scanner without any sedation during 6 minute-long structural MR sequences. On T1 structural images, volumetric analyses of the lateral ventricles were completed by s...
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In the human speech signal, cues of speech sounds and voice identities are conflated, but they are processed separately in the human brain. The processing of speech sounds and voice identities is typically performed by non-primary... more
In the human speech signal, cues of speech sounds and voice identities are conflated, but they are processed separately in the human brain. The processing of speech sounds and voice identities is typically performed by non-primary auditory regions in humans and non-human primates. Additionally, these processes exhibit functional asymmetry in humans, indicating the involvement of distinct mechanisms. Behavioural studies indicate analogue side biases in dogs, but neural evidence for this functional dissociation is missing. In two experiments, using an fMRI adaptation paradigm, we presented awake dogs with natural human speech that either varied in segmental (change in speech sound) or suprasegmental (change in voice identity) content. In auditory regions, we found a repetition enhancement effect for voice identity processing in a secondary auditory region – the caudal ectosylvian gyrus. The same region did not show repetition effects for speech sounds, nor did the primary auditory cor...
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In humans, behavioral disinhibition is associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Limitations to rodent models of ADHD-like behaviors/symptoms may be augmented by complementary ones, such as the domestic dog. We... more
In humans, behavioral disinhibition is associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Limitations to rodent models of ADHD-like behaviors/symptoms may be augmented by complementary ones, such as the domestic dog. We examined associations between family dogs&#39; (N = 29; of 14 breeds and 12 mongrels) performance on a self-developed touchscreen behavioral Go/No-Go paradigm and their owner-rated inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, accounting for relevant covariates. A greater proportion of commission errors was associated with greater hyperactivity/impulsivity. Regardless of accuracy, relative to dogs with no previous training, those with basic training had shorter response latencies. Also, regardless of accuracy, greater confidence and extraversion were associated with shorter latencies, and greater openness was associated with longer latencies. Shorter latency to commission errors was associated with greater inattention. Findings support the dog as a model of the association between behavioral disinhibition and ADHD-like behaviors/symptoms and are early evidence of convergent validity between the behavioral paradigm and the rating scale measure in dogs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is a promising animal model. Yet, the canine neuroscience literature is predominantly comprised of studies wherein (semi-)invasive methods and intensive training are used to study awake dog behavior.... more
The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is a promising animal model. Yet, the canine neuroscience literature is predominantly comprised of studies wherein (semi-)invasive methods and intensive training are used to study awake dog behavior. Given prior findings with humans and/or dogs, our goal was to assess, in 16 family dogs (1.5-7 years old; 10 males; 10 different breeds) the effects of pre-sleep activity and timing and location of sleep on sleep electrophysiology. All three factors had a main and/or interactive effect on sleep macrostructure. Following an active day, dogs slept more, were more likely to have an earlier drowsiness and NREM, and spent less time in drowsiness and more time in NREM and REM. Activity also had location- and time of day-specific effects. Time of day had main effects; at nighttime, dogs slept more and spent less time in drowsiness and awake after first drowsiness, and more time in NREM and in REM. Location had a main effect; when not at home, REM sleep follo...
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Socialized wolves' relationship with humans is a much debated, but important question in light of dog domestication. Earlier findings reported no attachment to the caretaker at four months of age in a Strange Situation Test, while... more
Socialized wolves' relationship with humans is a much debated, but important question in light of dog domestication. Earlier findings reported no attachment to the caretaker at four months of age in a Strange Situation Test, while recently attachment to the caretaker was reported at a few weeks of age in a similar paradigm. To explore wolf–human relationship, we analysed behaviours of hand reared, extensively socialized wolves towards four visitor types: foster-parents, close acquaintances, persons met once before, and complete strangers during a greeting episode. As hypothesized, in the greeting context subjects showed more intense and friendly behaviour towards foster-parents, than other visitor types, which may reflect familiarity and affinity. However, differences were more pronounced in the group situation (at six months of age) than in the individual situation (at 12 and 24 months), suggesting that unique status of foster parents may become less distinct as wolves get olde...
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The olfactory acuity of domestic dogs has been well established through numerous studies on trained canines, however whether untrained dogs spontaneously utilize this ability for problem solving is less clear. In the present paper we... more
The olfactory acuity of domestic dogs has been well established through numerous studies on trained canines, however whether untrained dogs spontaneously utilize this ability for problem solving is less clear. In the present paper we report two studies that examine what strategies family dogs use in two types of olfaction-based problems as well as their success at various distances. In Study 1, thirty dogs were tasked with distinguishing a target, either their covered owner (Exp 1) or baited food (Exp 2), from three visually identical choices at distances of 0m (touching distance), 1m, and 3m. There were nine consecutive trials for each target. We found that in Exp 1 the dogs successfully chose their owners over strangers at 0m and 1m, but not at 3m, where they used a win-stay strategy instead. In Exp 2 the dogs were only successful in choosing the baited pot at 0m. They used the win-stay strategy at 1m, but chose randomly at 3m. In Study 2, a different group of dogs was tested with...
Research Interests: Animal Behavior, Food, Multidisciplinary, Problem Solving, Dogs, and 5 moreFemale, Animals, Smell, Male, and PLoS one
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Expectancy bias towards positive outcomes is a potential key to subjective well-being, and has been widely investigated in different species. Here we test whether oxytocin, suggested to play a role in human optimism and emotional... more
Expectancy bias towards positive outcomes is a potential key to subjective well-being, and has been widely investigated in different species. Here we test whether oxytocin, suggested to play a role in human optimism and emotional processing, influences how dogs judge ambivalent situations (in a cognitive bias paradigm). Subjects first learned in a location discrimination task that a bowl either contained food (at the 'positive' location) or was empty (at the 'negative' location). Then, after receiving oxytocin or placebo nasal spray, they were presented with the bowl located halfway between the positive and negative positions in communicative or non-communicative contexts (N=4×16). A Positive Expectancy Score was calculated for each subject using the latency to approach this ambivalent location. Compared to placebo groups, subjects that received oxytocin pretreatment showed a positive expectation bias in both contexts, and this effect was more pronounced in the commu...
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ABSTRACT To maintain long-term human-robot communication, a robot behavior model based on the behaviors of dogs in human-dog relationships has been proposed. We apply this model to a robot in a monitoring support system designed for home... more
ABSTRACT To maintain long-term human-robot communication, a robot behavior model based on the behaviors of dogs in human-dog relationships has been proposed. We apply this model to a robot in a monitoring support system designed for home care. This paper presents an improvement to the model, adding behavioral factors to show different characteristics of the behaviors. We conduct experiments to evaluate users&#39; impressions of the robot behaviors when given different characteristics using a simulator. Our findings show that the subjects had the impressions that we expected based on the factors selected.
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Research Interests: Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, and 10 moreMultidisciplinary, Dogs, Humans, Cues, Female, Animals, Male, Heart rate, PLoS one, and Stress Physiological
The traditional approach for studying the evolutionary emergence of human social cognition is based on comparisons with apes and monkeys as model species with a homologous relationship to other primates and humans. Recently, however,... more
The traditional approach for studying the evolutionary emergence of human social cognition is based on comparisons with apes and monkeys as model species with a homologous relationship to other primates and humans. Recently, however, research interest has focused on other species offering analogous models for the evolution of human social cognitive abilities. Here we suggest that convergent social evolution in
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Which way does domestication work: creating new traits or modifying timing? ... No abstract is available. To read the body of this article, please view the Full Text online. ... Visit SciVerse ScienceDirect to see if you have access via... more
Which way does domestication work: creating new traits or modifying timing? ... No abstract is available. To read the body of this article, please view the Full Text online. ... Visit SciVerse ScienceDirect to see if you have access via your institution. ... Advertisements on this site ...
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We describe the relationships between dog owners’ personality attributes (assessed via questionnaire), their behaviours and the dog’s behaviours observed during brief dog-owner and dog-stranger interactions (N = 78). Interactions... more
We describe the relationships between dog owners’ personality attributes (assessed via questionnaire), their behaviours and the dog’s behaviours observed during brief dog-owner and dog-stranger interactions (N = 78). Interactions comprised the owner commanding the dog to sit, and the stranger showing a ball to the restrained dog and then hiding it. Owners scoring higher on neuroticism and openness used more commands (gestural and verbal) when asking the dog to sit, and the dogs of owners higher on neuroticism obeyed with a longer latency and spent more time looking at the stranger. More extraverted owners praised their dog more, and it took longer for their dogs to look at the stranger but they spent more time looking at the stranger, whereas dogs of more agreeable owners spent more time looking at the ball. Based on these results we conclude that some aspects of owners’ personality appear to be tied to their dog’s attentional concerns. Keywords: dog-human interaction; personality; ...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Animal Behavior, Animal communication, Aggressive Behavior, and 15 moreDogs, Humans, Aggression, Developmental Psychobiology, Female, Animals, Male, Domestication, Early development, Developmental, Bottle Feeding, Longitudinal Studies, Analysis of Variance, Age Factors, and Object Attachment
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Humans excel at assessing conspecific emotional valence and intensity, based solely on non-verbal vocal bursts that are also common in other mammals. It is not known, however, whether human listeners rely on similar acoustic cues to... more
Humans excel at assessing conspecific emotional valence and intensity, based solely on non-verbal vocal bursts that are also common in other mammals. It is not known, however, whether human listeners rely on similar acoustic cues to assess emotional content in conspecific and heterospecific vocalizations, and which acoustical parameters affect their performance. Here, for the first time, we directly compared the emotional valence and intensity perception of dog and human non-verbal vocalizations. We revealed similar relationships between acoustic features and emotional valence and intensity ratings of human and dog vocalizations: those with shorter call lengths were rated as more positive, whereas those with a higher pitch were rated as more intense. Our findings demonstrate that humans rate conspecific emotional vocalizations along basic acoustic rules, and that they apply similar rules when processing dog vocal expressions. This suggests that humans may utilize similar mental mech...
Research Interests: Animal communication, Emotions, Biological Sciences, Dogs, Humans, and 5 moreFemale, Animals, Male, Young Adult, and Adult
Dogs&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; ability to recognise cues of human visual attention was studied in different experiments. Study 1 was designed to test... more
Dogs&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; ability to recognise cues of human visual attention was studied in different experiments. Study 1 was designed to test the dogs&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; responsiveness to their owner&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s tape-recorded verbal commands (Down!) while the Instructor (who was the owner of the dog) was facing either the dog or a human partner or none of them, or was visually separated from the dog. Results show that dogs were more ready to follow the command if the Instructor attended them during instruction compared to situations when the Instructor faced the human partner or was out of sight of the dog. Importantly, however, dogs showed intermediate performance when the Instructor was orienting into &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;empty space&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; during the re-played verbal commands. This suggests that dogs are able to differentiate the focus of human attention. In Study 2 the same dogs were offered the possibility to beg for food from two unfamiliar humans whose visual attention (i.e. facing the dog or turning away) was systematically varied. The dogs&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; preference for choosing the attentive person shows that dogs are capable of using visual cues of attention to evaluate the human actors&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; responsiveness to solicit food-sharing. The dogs&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; ability to understand the communicatory nature of the situations is discussed in terms of their social cognitive skills and unique evolutionary history.
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The use of animal-like autonomous robots might offer new possibilities in the study of animal interactions, if the subject recognises it as a social partner. In this paper we investigate whether AIBO, a dog-like robot of the Sony Corp.... more
The use of animal-like autonomous robots might offer new possibilities in the study of animal interactions, if the subject recognises it as a social partner. In this paper we investigate whether AIBO, a dog-like robot of the Sony Corp. can be used for this purpose. Twenty-four adult and sixteen 4-5 months old pet dogs were tested in two situations where subjects encountered one of four different test-partners: (1) a remote controlled car; (2) an AIBO robot; (3) AIBO with a puppy-scented furry cover; and (4) a 2-month-old puppy. In the neutral situation the dog could interact freely with one of the partners for 1 min in a closed arena in the presence of its owner. In the feeding situation the encounters were started while the dog was eating food. Our results show that age and context influence the social behaviour of dogs. Further, we have found that although both age groups differentiated the living and non-living test-partners for some extent, the furry AIBO evoked significantly increased responses in comparison to the car. These experiments show the first steps towards the application of robots in behavioural studies, notwithstanding that at present AIBO's limited ability to move constrains its effectiveness as social partner for dogs.
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ABSTRACT Dog owners ascribe guilt to dogs, and we explored this attribution with pet dogs and their owners using a questionnaire and experiment. The questionnaire found that the majority of owners perceive dog behavior as guilty in... more
ABSTRACT Dog owners ascribe guilt to dogs, and we explored this attribution with pet dogs and their owners using a questionnaire and experiment. The questionnaire found that the majority of owners perceive dog behavior as guilty in certain situations and believe that dogs know when they have committed a disapproved act. As a novel finding, the questionnaire revealed that dog presentation of guilty behavior could lead owners to scold dogs less. The experiment aimed to investigate the owner-reported anecdote that dogs sometimes greet owners displaying guilty behavior. Owners claim to be unaware of a dog&#39;s misdeed and assert it is the guilty behavior that informs them of the dog&#39;s infraction. We studied whether dogs that were disobedient in owners&#39; absences showed associated behaviors of guilt (ABs) upon owners&#39; return to a room. We also assessed whether owners could determine their dog&#39;s disobedience by relying solely on the dog&#39;s greeting behavior. Behavioral analysis revealed no significant difference between obedient and disobedient dogs in their display of ABs after having the opportunity to break a rule in owners&#39; absences. Analyses at the individual level, however, revealed a significant increase in cross situational presentation of ABs only by dogs that transgressed in owners&#39; absences. While owners appeared able to determine whether or not their dogs ate in their absences, a subset of owners-those whose decisions were most likely based solely on dog greeting behavior and not earlier experiment-generated cues-were not better than chance in their determinations. Taken together, our findings suggest that dog presentation of ABs during greetings is not necessarily a reliable indicator whether or not a dog engaged in a misdeed. The investigated phenomenon appears to be very sensitive to the social condition, which includes owner prior experience with their dog in specific contexts. Published by Elsevier B.V.