An overview of the dog–human dyad and ethograms within it

McGreevy, Paul D.; Starling, Melissa J.; Branson, N. J. B. A.; Cobb, Mia; Calnon, Debbie

doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2011.06.001

Cited by 55 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…The social rank of a dog can be estimated from its ability to gain and retain access to valuable resources, although any such tests must be qualified by specifying the resource in question. The ability of a dog to retain a given resource and displace others from it can be learned and so contribute to the development of social order [ 28 ]. Such resources may include tug-of-war objects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations between Domestic-Dog Morphology and Behaviour Scores in the Dog Mentality Assessment

et al. 2016

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The domestic dog shows a wide range of morphologies, that humans have selected for in the process of creating unique breeds. Recent studies have revealed correlations between changes in morphology and behaviour as reported by owners. For example, as height and weight decrease, many undesirable behaviours (non-social fear, hyperactivity and attention seeking) become more apparent. The current study aimed to explore more of these correlations, but this time used reports from trained observers. Phenotypic measurements were recorded from a range of common dog breeds (n = 45) and included cephalic index (CI: the ratio of skull width to skull length), bodyweight, height and sex. These data were then correlated with results from the Dog Mentality Assessment (DMA), which involves trained observers scoring a dog’s reaction to stimuli presented over 10 standardised subtests. Each subtest is designed to evoke a behavioural response. Backward elimination and weighted step-wise regression revealed that shorter dogs demonstrated more aggressive tendencies, reacting defensively toward both assistants dressed as ghosts (p = 0.045), and to a dummy (p = 0.008). Taller dogs were more affectionate when greeting and being handled by humans (p = 0.007, p = <0.001, respectively). Taller dogs were also more cooperative (p = <0.001), and playful (p = 0.001) with humans than shorter dogs. Heavier dogs were more inquisitive toward a dummy (p = 0.011), to the source of a metallic noise (p = 0.010) and to an assistant (p = 0.003). Heavier dogs were also more attentive to the ghosts (p = 0.013). In comparison, lighter dogs were cautious of a dummy (p = <0.001) and fearful of the sound of a gunshot (p = <0.001). Lighter dogs were also cautious of, and demonstrated prolonged fearfulness toward, the source of metallic noise (p = <0.001, p = <0.034, respectively). With a far larger sample and the advantage of third-party reporting (which overcomes potential owner bias), the current findings build on previous studies in this field, further supporting covariance between morphology and behaviour.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations between Domestic-Dog Morphology and Behaviour Scores in the Dog Mentality Assessment

et al. 2016

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“…The lower attention towards the eyes from dog observers might alternatively (or additionally) stem from the functional significance of eye contact in dogs compared to humans. While humans engage in prolonged eye gaze for mostly positive reasons (e.g., emotion perception, communicative intent, Senju and Csibra 2008;Kis et al 2017), with lack of eye contact interpreted negatively (Larsen and Shackelford 1996), in canids, and many other species, a fixed stare is linked to agonistic contexts (McGreevy et al 2012;Kis et al 2017).…”

Section: Dog Perception Of Facial Expressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of dynamic facial expressions of emotion between dogs and humans

2020

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Facial expressions are a core component of the emotional response of social mammals. In contrast to Darwin's original proposition, expressive facial cues of emotion appear to have evolved to be species-specific. Faces trigger an automatic perceptual process, and so, inter-specific emotion perception is potentially a challenge; since observers should not try to "read" heterospecific facial expressions in the same way that they do conspecific ones. Using dynamic spontaneous facial expression stimuli, we report the first inter-species eye-tracking study on fully unrestrained participants and without pre-experiment training to maintain attention to stimuli, to compare how two different species living in the same ecological niche, humans and dogs, perceive each other's facial expressions of emotion. Humans and dogs showed different gaze distributions when viewing the same facial expressions of either humans or dogs. Humans modulated their gaze depending on the area of interest (AOI) being examined, emotion, and species observed, but dogs modulated their gaze depending on AOI only. We also analysed if the gaze distribution was random across AOIs in both species: in humans, eye movements were not correlated with the diagnostic facial movements occurring in the emotional expression, and in dogs, there was only a partial relationship. This suggests that the scanning of facial expressions is a relatively automatic process. Thus, to read other species' facial emotions successfully, individuals must overcome these automatic perceptual processes and employ learning strategies to appreciate the inter-species emotional repertoire.

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“…For example, many urban dogs encounter ambiguous signals on a day-to-day basis, such as the subtleties of body language in an unknown dog or human, unidentified sounds and smells, and visual stimuli such as a white paper bag on the ground that may or may not contain discarded food. It can be argued that training interactions with humans also contain an element of ambiguity for dogs, such as interpreting hand signals or verbal cues and reading body language [ 3 ]. As such, it is predicted that, in general, all operant training approaches will be negatively affected by a negative affective state.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The science behind operant conditioning, while detailed, sound, and very useful, is not a complete model, missing biological and psychological principles beyond the behavioural principles developed that may help further our understanding of the origins of behaviour [ 2 , Chapter 1]. For example, in dogs, it may fail to fully explain why one dog may relate more to one trainer than another, despite both trainers using the same operant techniques [ 3 ]. It has long been held that behavioural output is also a product of affect, which comprises two components, arousal and emotional valence [ 4 , 5 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualising the Impact of Arousal and Affective State on Training Outcomes of Operant Conditioning

Starling

Branson

Cody³

et al. 2013

Animals

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Simple SummaryThis article discusses the impacts of arousal and emotional state on training animals using methods based on reward and punishment. Three-dimensional graphs are provided to offer a visual means to illustrate how arousal and emotional state may influence the effectiveness of reward and punishment depending on the behaviour being trained. Dogs and horses are used to illustrate this with reference to commonly trained behaviours in a predatory and a prey animal. AbstractAnimal training relies heavily on an understanding of species-specific behaviour as it integrates with operant conditioning principles. Following on from recent studies showing that affective states and arousal levels may correlate with behavioural outcomes, we explore the contribution of both affective state and arousal in behavioural responses to operant conditioning. This paper provides a framework for assessing how affective state and arousal may influence the efficacy of operant training methods. It provides a series of three-dimensional conceptual graphs as exemplars to describing putative influences of both affective state and arousal on the likelihood of dogs and horses performing commonly desired behaviours. These graphs are referred to as response landscapes, and they highlight the flexibility available for improving training efficacy and the likely need for different approaches to suit animals in different affective states and at various levels of arousal. Knowledge gaps are discussed and suggestions made for bridging them.

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An overview of the dog–human dyad and ethograms within it

Cited by 55 publications

References 85 publications

Associations between Domestic-Dog Morphology and Behaviour Scores in the Dog Mentality Assessment

Associations between Domestic-Dog Morphology and Behaviour Scores in the Dog Mentality Assessment

Perception of dynamic facial expressions of emotion between dogs and humans

Conceptualising the Impact of Arousal and Affective State on Training Outcomes of Operant Conditioning

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