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The effect of tactile and acoustic signals on reduction of signs of stress in dogs
Murínová, Karolína ; Santariová, Milena (advisor) ; Fuchs, Roman (referee)
Being touched by the human brings up physiological and behavioral feedback in the dog which indicates touch has a calming effect. Measurements taken include noticable changes in blood pressure, heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) as well as hormonal changes - especially oxytoxin and cortisol levels. The primary objective of the fieldwork was analyzing the influence human touch has on the stressed dog and trying to bring its stress levels down using voice stimulation and a combination of voice and tactile stimuli. The dog was put into an empty room, causing elevated stress levels. After a fixed period of time the dog's owner would enter and try to calm the dog down using afromentioned treatments. The owner would then sit down on a chair and pay no more attention to the dog. The relaxing effect is being evaluated using two cardiovascular parameters, HR and HRV, and behavioural signaling. Measurements of each of the sessions are being taken three times when the dog is not moving. Phase 1 is when the dog is alone in a room, Phase 2 is taken just after the interaction with its owner has ended and Phase 3 at the end of the experiment when the dog's stress level is still. The results showed that, instead of the expected calming effect of social interaction with the owner, the effect was...
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Reference meaning of words in human-dog communication
Stemmerová, Lucia ; Lindová, Jitka (advisor) ; Santariová, Milena (referee)
In recent twenty years dogs have become model subjects of comparing studies. These experiments show us that specific cognitive skills have developed during their domestication as an adaptation to anthropomorphic environment. For example dogs can follow human gaze and understand gestures. An important topic of today researches are linguistic skills of dogs. Knowledge from this area would help to discover more from evolution processes which formed human language. Last studies have proven dogs can distinguish a new object by a fast mapping. But when distinguishing two new objects, dogs had problems. That is why I decided to verify if dogs are able to remember two new words and match them with correct objects during one session. For this experiment I worked on a new methodical procedure and used three border collies dogs. The results showed that after some training dogs were able to correctly distinguish two new words in case the experimentalist stood in front of them and they used multisenzorial perception. In case they had only one communication source (visual or acoustic), they made more mistakes. The results show that functional reactions of dogs to human vocalization are getting better if they can use visual and acoustic source in one time during an interspecies communication. Key words: dog,...
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Effect of stress level on operant conditioning
Lukavská, Markéta ; Nekovářová, Tereza (advisor) ; Santariová, Milena (referee)
Stress is a normal adaptive process and a natural response of the body to those events which are somehow difficult for the individual. It also plays an important part in forming cognitive abilities of animals such as learning. For learning an adequate reaction to the individual's environment it is adaptive to take in as much information as possible, learn to put it into context and react based on it (cognitive strategy). This strategy can help in an ever changing environment as it causes the individual to broaden the range of their behavioural responses and increases the chance of survival. This makes the operant learning a highly desirable method. That is unless the animal finds itself in a situation which calls for a quick response (high level of excitement/agitation) in which case there is no time for processing of information as it is crucial to react instantly (habitual learning - habit strategy). Habitual learning is effective even at a high level of stress when there is "no time" for the operant learning. Operant learning requires the individual's involvement and therefore also the motivation to execute specific behaviour which is then strengthened (in a positive or negative way). In terms of motivation it is a choice between saving energy or safety and the possibility of achieving a...
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Haptic as a means of interspecific communication between dog (Canis lupus familiaris) and human
Jurásková, Karolína ; Santariová, Milena (advisor) ; Štěrbová, Zuzana (referee)
Even though haptics is an integral constituent of the intraspecific communication between man and dog, it is studied in lesser extent to its sibling disciplines. This paper consolidates existing findings about means of tactile communication man and dog demonstrate when engaged in reciprocal sharing of information. The complexity of intraspecific communication between these two species is quite unique and mostly enabled by the evolutionary processes of domestication, which in effect made dogs more adapt to understanding human signalling more tightly than what is the case for other primates. Given how the dog and the man use haptics withing the bounds of intraspecific communication, the relationship evolved beyond it and towards the realm of relational interactions. Let us then, characterize the individual types of signals and their meanings. Tactile signals find their use in both the everyday life and during a training by a professional. Touch can be used as negative and positive reinforcement. It can be stressful to the dog if perceived negatively or calming if perceived positively. Relaxational effects of tactile contact is also used by a form of rehabilitation called animal assisted therapy. Given the variability of haptic stimuli, both acting species can manifest a plethora of...
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Reference meaning of words in human-dog communication
Stemmerová, Lucia ; Lindová, Jitka (advisor) ; Santariová, Milena (referee)
In recent twenty years dogs have become model subjects of comparing studies. These experiments show us that specific cognitive skills have developed during their domestication as an adaptation to anthropomorphic environment. For example dogs can follow human gaze and understand gestures. An important topic of today researches are linguistic skills of dogs. Knowledge from this area would help to discover more from evolution processes which formed human language. Last studies have proven dogs can distinguish a new object by a fast mapping. But when distinguishing two new objects, dogs had problems. That is why I decided to verify if dogs are able to remember two new words and match them with correct objects during one session. For this experiment I worked on a new methodical procedure and used three border collies dogs. The results showed that after some training dogs were able to correctly distinguish two new words in case the experimentalist stood in front of them and they used multisenzorial perception. In case they had only one communication source (visual or acoustic), they made more mistakes. The results show that functional reactions of dogs to human vocalization are getting better if they can use visual and acoustic source in one time during an interspecies communication. Key words: dog,...
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Individual human odor as a forensic trail in criminal proceeding made by contact or contactless transmission and its resistance to physical agents
Santariová, Milena ; Bartoš, Luděk (advisor) ; Chmelíková, Eva (referee)
The dissertation thesis consists of four papers that have been published in scientific journals.
Study n. 1
The need to recover evidence from water is quite common in criminal investigation. The article deals with the possibility to collect human scent from such objects and with the ability of specially trained dogs to match such scent samples with scent samples collected from detained suspects. During an experiment, designed as a blind one, it has been proved, that human scent can survive on submerged objects and can be later used for scent identification.
Study n. 2
To collect odors the Czech Republic Police use special fabric sorbents manufactured under the registered mark ARATEX. Before use the fabric sorbent is treated by water vapor sterilization. After the scent identification the sorbent is destroyed. The goal of the study was to verify if the vapor sterilization is effective enough to remove human scent that has already penetrated into the sorbent structure or in other words if the sorbent can be exposed to vapor sterilization and then used again. Specially trained dogs were used to match starting odors with target odors in the line-ups. The results showed that dogs are able to correctly match human odors even after they have being exposed to vapor sterilization.
Study n. 3
The purpose of the study was to determine the temperature at which the human scent is degraded so that a dog would not be able to identify it. In contrast to expectations, eight dogs used in the experiment almost flawlessly identified human scents from five scent donors exposed to temperatures of 100°C, 200°C, 300°C, 400°C, 500°C, 600°C, 700°C, and 800°C. Only two of the dogs were able to identify 5 of 15 scent samples exposed to 900°C. No dog identified a scent exposed to 1000°C. Our study verified heat survivability of human scent far beyond existing expectations.
Study n. 4
We tested the hypothesis that if odor fallout (the release of a human odor onto an untouched object) in human subjects exists, then holding a hand above an absorbent will produce a detectable scent which will be subsequently matched in a detection test by trained dogs. Scents were collected from seven males to sterile cotton absorbent squares. The left hand was used to get the control scent and the right hand served as the target scent. Each experimental subject was sitting and his left hand was laid down on a cotton square for 3 min. The right hand was held 5 cm above another cotton square for 3 min. The scent identification was done by two specially trained police German shepherds. Both dogs performed 14 line-ups and correctly matched the collected scents of all test subjects. The results suggest the existence of human odor fallout, whereby a human scent trace is left by humans even if they do not touch an object.
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