Emotions in dogs being petted by a familiar or unfamiliar person: Validating behavioural indicators of emotional states using heart rate variability

Kühne, Franziska; Hößler, Johanna C.; Struwe, Rainer

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2014.09.020

Cited by 57 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In line with previous literature on humans and many other animal species [24,47,63,78,79], the results of this study indicated that mean HR (corrected for dynamic components of behavior) was linked to emotional arousal. Nevertheless, HR provides limited…”

Section: Accepted M Manuscriptsupporting

confidence: 79%

How good is this food? A study on dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event using infrared thermography

Travain

Colombo

Grandi

et al. 2016

Physiology & Behavior

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Understanding how animals express positive emotions is becoming an interesting and promising area of research in the study of animal emotions and affective experiences.In the present study, we used infrared thermography in combination with behavioral measures, heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), to investigate dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event: receiving palatable food from the owner. 2. Tail wagging could be a useful indicator of positive emotional state.3. Eye temperature can assess the arousal dimension of dogs' emotions in a positive situation.

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Section: Accepted M Manuscriptsupporting

confidence: 79%

How good is this food? A study on dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event using infrared thermography

Travain

Colombo

Grandi

et al. 2016

Physiology & Behavior

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“…The interruption or absence of ongoing movements is commonly termed freezing behaviour (e.g. Davis 1997; Levine 1997; Kuhne et al 2014). As freezing is a behaviour response often expressed in social conflicting situations (Marks 1987), the increased freezing behaviour in response to dog stimuli, independent of their valence, might indicate that hearing unfamiliar dog sounds could generally cause higher social tension in the subjects compared to hearing unfamiliar human sounds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating emotional contagion in dogs (Canis familiaris) to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics

et al. 2017

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Emotional contagion, a basic component of empathy defined as emotional state-matching between individuals, has previously been shown in dogs even upon solely hearing negative emotional sounds of humans or conspecifics. The current investigation further sheds light on this phenomenon by directly contrasting emotional sounds of both species (humans and dogs) as well as opposed valences (positive and negative) to gain insights into intra- and interspecies empathy as well as differences between positively and negatively valenced sounds. Different types of sounds were played back to measure the influence of three dimensions on the dogs’ behavioural response. We found that dogs behaved differently after hearing non-emotional sounds of their environment compared to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics (“Emotionality” dimension), but the subjects responded similarly to human and conspecific sounds (“Species” dimension). However, dogs expressed more freezing behaviour after conspecific sounds, independent of the valence. Comparing positively with negatively valenced sounds of both species (“Valence” dimension), we found that, independent of the species from which the sound originated, dogs expressed more behavioural indicators for arousal and negatively valenced states after hearing negative emotional sounds. This response pattern indicates emotional state-matching or emotional contagion for negative sounds of humans and conspecifics. It furthermore indicates that dogs recognized the different valences of the emotional sounds, which is a promising finding for future studies on empathy for positive emotional states in dogs.

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“…Behavioral observations corroborate that a decrease in HRV is associated with stress in dogs. Dogs show low HRV and increases in appeasement gestures indicative of discomfort during petting by a stranger (Kuhne et al, 2014), and when their owner leaves the room (Katayama et al, 2016). This study sought to further the investigation of dogs' empathetic and prosocial capacities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timmy’s in the well: Empathy and prosocial helping in dogs

2018

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Dogs are thought to evaluate humans' emotional states, and attend more to crying people than to humming people. However, it is unclear whether dogs would go beyond focusing attention on humans in need by providing more substantive help to them. This study used a trapped-other paradigm, modified from use in research on rats, to study prosocial helping in dogs. A human trapped behind a door either cried or hummed, and the dog's behavioral and physiological responses (i.e., door opening and heart rate variability) were recorded. Then, dogs participated in an impossible task to evaluate gaze at the owner as a measure of the strength of their relationship with their owner. Dogs in the distress condition opened at the same frequency, but significantly more quickly, than dogs in the control condition. In the distress condition, the dogs that opened showed lower levels of stress and were able to suppress their own distress response, thus enabling them to open the door more quickly. In the control condition, opening was not related to the dog's stress level and may have instead been motivated by curiosity or a desire for social contact. Results from the impossible task suggest that openers in the distress condition may have a stronger bond with their owner than non-openers, while non-openers in the control condition showed a stronger bond than openers, which may further suggest that the trapped-other paradigm is reflective of empathy.

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Emotions in dogs being petted by a familiar or unfamiliar person: Validating behavioural indicators of emotional states using heart rate variability

Cited by 57 publications

References 44 publications

How good is this food? A study on dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event using infrared thermography

How good is this food? A study on dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event using infrared thermography

Investigating emotional contagion in dogs (Canis familiaris) to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics

Timmy’s in the well: Empathy and prosocial helping in dogs

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