Barking in family dogs: An ethological approach

Pongrácz, Péter; Molnár, Csaba; Miklósi, Ádám

doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2008.12.010

Cited by 72 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This process may evoke ambiguity and fear in dogs (who may be fearful in other social contexts too). Thus the positive correlation between the latency of getting the DNA sample and the dogs' tendency to bark appears to be in accordance with previous studies finding that despair and fear related behaviours are also accompanied by barking (Molnár et al, 2006;Pongrácz et al, 2010).…”

Section: Association Between Owners' Subjective Rating and Behaviour supporting

confidence: 92%

Association between subjective rating and behaviour coding and the role of experience in making video assessments on the personality of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

Mirkó

Dóka

Miklósi

2013

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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In this paper our first aim was to investigate association between behaviour coding based on a test battery called the FIDO Personality test for dogs (Canis familiaris) and a subjective rating given by dog owners. For the latter we asked dog owners to fill in the Dog Personality Questionnaire (DPQ) which established four personality traits for dogs: Strangerdirected Sociability, Activity, Aggressiveness and Trainability. The FIDO Personality test consists of a series of subtests in which we utilised an ethogram and measured different aspects of dog behaviour. Prior to this study we established a set of possible associations between the behavioural and the questionnaire variables.With regard to Trainability no correlation could be detected between any of the questionnaire variables and the hypothetically corresponding test battery variables. In the case of Stranger-directed Sociability, we revealed correlation between owners' reports and the dogs' behaviour during the test stuation. Those dogs which were reported 'initiative' and 'not mistrustful with unfamiliar humans' approached the experimenter with shorter latency (r = -0.25, p < 0.01; r = 0.24, p < 0.01) and played more with her than those who were scored lower on these questionnaire items (r = -0.27, p < 0.01). For the factor Activity, no correlation was found between the owners' report and the behaviour of dogs displayed in the Spontaneous activity phase of the test battery. Association was revealed between the owners' report regarding the dogs' preference for ball games and playing and their behaviour in the corresponding subtest. Those dogs which were reported to like ball games and like playing with the owner played with the ball as well as with a tug more in the test situation than those which were scored lower on the questionnaire variable 'likes fetching balls'(r = 0.47, p < 0.001; r = 0.25, p < 0.01). As regards the factor Aggressiveness, the questionnaire variable 'shows a tendency to bark' correlated with the dogs' aggressive reactions (growl, bite, attack) (r = 0.25, p < 0.01) in the Bone take-away subtest and with the 'latency of getting the DNA sample' (r = 0.30, p < 0.001) in the Getting DNA sample subtest. The results show that despite of the investigated associations there is a need for more effort to refine both questionnaire-based and behaviour-based assessment of dog personality.The second aim of our experiments was to reveal whether owner ratings on the above personality factors converged with the ratings of independent groups of observers based on the video recordings of the FIDO Personality test. First, in the case of each factor, we compared the degrees of ratings given by the owners and by the three rater groups with different levels of hands-on experience with dogs. We found no difference in the case of Stranger-directed Sociability, Activity and Trainability (F(3,128)=1.17, p=0.17; F(3,128)=0.99, p=0.4; F(3,128)=1.6, p=0.18 respectively) but there was a significant variability in judging Aggressiveness (F(3,128)=2.86, p=0...

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Section: Association Between Owners' Subjective Rating and Behaviour supporting

confidence: 92%

Association between subjective rating and behaviour coding and the role of experience in making video assessments on the personality of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

Mirkó

Dóka

Miklósi

2013

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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“…Dog vocalizations are especially interesting when studying cross-species emotional communication, because of the long-shared history of the two species [23] and the possible effects of human selection on the vocal repertoire of dogs [24]. While barks seem to have become diversified contextually and acoustically over the course of domestication, growls seem to be less affected, as they are mostly used in similar contexts in dogs and their closest wild relatives [25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dog growls express various contextual and affective content for human listeners

et al. 2017

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Vocal expressions of emotions follow simple rules to encode the inner state of the caller into acoustic parameters, not just within species, but also in cross-species communication. Humans use these structural rules to attribute emotions to dog vocalizations, especially to barks, which match with their contexts. In contrast, humans were found to be unable to differentiate between playful and threatening growls, probably because single growls' aggression level was assessed based on acoustic size cues. To resolve this contradiction, we played back natural growl bouts from three social contexts (food guarding, threatening and playing) to humans, who had to rate the emotional load and guess the context of the playbacks. Listeners attributed emotions to growls according to their social contexts. Within threatening and playful contexts, bouts with shorter, slower pulsing growls and showing smaller apparent body size were rated to be less aggressive and fearful, but more playful and happy. Participants associated the correct contexts with the growls above chance. Moreover, women and participants experienced with dogs scored higher in this task. Our results indicate that dogs may communicate honestly their size and inner state in a serious contest situation, while manipulatively in more uncertain defensive and playful contexts.

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“…Previous studies on voice-induced cross-taxa emotional recognition focused solely on the others-perspective. It was shown that human listeners are able to recognize the context and/or its emotional content in which the animal was calling (cats: [37]; dogs: [30], [31], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43]; pigs: [32]; macaques: [33]; except [7]). Since most of the studies confronted human listeners with only one species, either domesticated (to some extent familiar to human listeners) or primate (phylogentically close related to human listeners), it still remains unclear whether voice-induced cross-taxa emotional recognition can be explained by familiarity or by phylogeny as a result of cross-taxa universal acoustic coding and processing mechanisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Voice of Emotion across Species: How Do Human Listeners Recognize Animals' Affective States?

et al. 2014

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Voice-induced cross-taxa emotional recognition is the ability to understand the emotional state of another species based on its voice. In the past, induced affective states, experience-dependent higher cognitive processes or cross-taxa universal acoustic coding and processing mechanisms have been discussed to underlie this ability in humans. The present study sets out to distinguish the influence of familiarity and phylogeny on voice-induced cross-taxa emotional perception in humans. For the first time, two perspectives are taken into account: the self- (i.e. emotional valence induced in the listener) versus the others-perspective (i.e. correct recognition of the emotional valence of the recording context). Twenty-eight male participants listened to 192 vocalizations of four different species (human infant, dog, chimpanzee and tree shrew). Stimuli were recorded either in an agonistic (negative emotional valence) or affiliative (positive emotional valence) context. Participants rated the emotional valence of the stimuli adopting self- and others-perspective by using a 5-point version of the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). Familiarity was assessed based on subjective rating, objective labelling of the respective stimuli and interaction time with the respective species. Participants reliably recognized the emotional valence of human voices, whereas the results for animal voices were mixed. The correct classification of animal voices depended on the listener's familiarity with the species and the call type/recording context, whereas there was less influence of induced emotional states and phylogeny. Our results provide first evidence that explicit voice-induced cross-taxa emotional recognition in humans is shaped more by experience-dependent cognitive mechanisms than by induced affective states or cross-taxa universal acoustic coding and processing mechanisms.

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Barking in family dogs: An ethological approach

Cited by 72 publications

References 35 publications

Association between subjective rating and behaviour coding and the role of experience in making video assessments on the personality of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

Association between subjective rating and behaviour coding and the role of experience in making video assessments on the personality of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

Dog growls express various contextual and affective content for human listeners

The Voice of Emotion across Species: How Do Human Listeners Recognize Animals' Affective States?

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