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Emotions and aesthetic preferences evoked by animals in the context of nature conservation
Janovcová, Markéta ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Stibral, Karel (referee) ; Prokop, Pavol (referee)
People have always seen animals as an important part of their lives. As a result of human activity and other factors, an increasing number of species are becoming endangered. Recently, nature conservation has become increasingly important, but conservation activities cannot do without public support, not only financial. For this reason, it is necessary to understand how people perceive animals and what implications this may have for planning conservation programmes. In this paper, we focused on positive perceptions of animals ascertained through aesthetic preferences (the beauty of the animal) and negative perception through emotions (fear and disgust). It was found that the beauty of the animal and attributed dangerousness have a decisive influence on the support of conservation activities in the preferred group of mammals, while body size and attributed intelligence do not. In contrast, reptiles are an often neglected group of vertebrates, yet they are perceived by humans quite consistently. Humans distinguish reptiles on the basis of external appearance, namely the presence of limbs. Thus, there is a separate group of legless reptiles represented mainly by snakes and legless lizards (e.g. Amphisbaenia), which have their own rules for evaluating beauty and emotions. As it was found in the...
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Subjective and psychophysiological parametres of emotions elicited by various animal taxa
Peterková, Šárka ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Čmejla, Roman (referee) ; Španiel, Filip (referee)
SUBJEKTIVNÍ A PSYCHOFYZIOLOGICKÉ PARAMETRY EMOCÍ, KTERÉ VZBUZUJÍ RŮZNÉ SKUPINY ZVÍŘAT Mgr. Šárka Peterková Abstract The central theme of this dissertation is human evaluation of animals from the perspective of subjectively experienced emotions and their psychophysiological correlates. It deals mainly with the emotion of disgust and its connection with aesthetic evaluation and perception of animal beauty, and, on the other hand, with another negative emotion, fear. It also aims to assess the findings from an evolutionary perspective and to understand the role of emotions evoked by animals in present times. It contains a total of six papers that were part of broader scientific projects, each of which addresses the subject from a slightly different angle. The first paper is a review dealing with negative emotions evoked by animals and is thus part of the theoretical introduction to this dissertation. It provides an overview of the subjective evaluation of animals according to fear and disgust, places the role of negative emotions in an evolutionary context, and finally analyses specific morphological features of representatives of different taxa that influence human perception. The second article details the assessment of emotions evoked by amphibians. In this case, the degree of perceived disgust is so...
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Changes in sexual disgust sensitivity during women's reproductive period
Šeda, Jan ; Kaňková, Šárka (advisor) ; Landová, Eva (referee)
Disgust is one of the basic human emotions with an adaptive function, which is primarily to avoid potential transmission of pathogens. One of its components is also sexual disgust, which should serve as a protection against suboptimal sexual behaviour and help in choosing the right sexual partner. The female reproductive period is accompanied by many physiological and psychological changes, which may result in changes in the level of disgust sensitivity. The aim of this study was to track these changes in the still understudied domain of sexual disgust, particularly during pregnancy and postpartum period, but also in non-pregnant women in relation to changes during the menstrual cycle. In line with the proposed hypotheses, higher levels of sexual disgust were observed in women in the first trimester of pregnancy compared to non-pregnant, childless women, which may be related both to the protection of mother and child against possible harm, especially due to infections, or to protection against unpleasant experiences during sex, which may be caused by physical and psychological changes during pregnancy. No statistically significant differences were observed in the degree of sexual disgust in relation to the phases of the menstrual cycle. The results of the longitudinal study showed significant...
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Specific response of primates to snake predators
Regásková, Kristýna ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Lhota, Stanislav (referee)
The specific response to snake predators in primates is due to long coevolution with snakes. This long coevolution has led to a specific and complex response in primates when confronted with snakes. The cues by which primates recognize snakes versus other types of stimuli may be based on olfactory or visual information. Reactions such as a priori fear or avoidance may be followed by various antipredatory responses such as specific vocalizations, avoidance behaviour, early escape or, conversely, active defence and mobbing. The response to venomous snakes and constrictors can vary in many ways based on the different threat they pose. Key words: Predation, mobbing, snake, primates, vocalization, anxiety
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Maternal effect in selected rodent species: positive and negative effect on offspring fitness
Malá, Jana ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Stopková, Romana (referee)
This work describes the most studied mechanisms which could be classified as maternal effects. Here I focus on the effects of body weight, health status, intestinal microflora and age of the mother in model rodent organisms. I also present factors such as the position of the young in the uterus, population density, stress and especially maternal care, which accompanies this entire work. Each of these mechanisms can positively or negatively influence offspring fitness, depending on specific environmental conditions. Maternal behaviour is presented here in the form of research, which documents both epigenetic and genetic influences acting on its final form. Maternal care as an element of maternal behaviour shows a different measure between individuals, indicated by the frequency of licking and cleaning offsprings. By evaluation of maternal care, we can find in laboratory populations two stable phenotypes of individuals with different behavioural manifestations in terms of sexual behaviour, stress reaction, aggression or cognitive abilities. The discussion critically evaluates whether maternal care really affects reproductive success and whether it can therefore be considered an adaptive mechanism. According to the available information, low maternal care appears to be a more beneficial strategy in...
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Epigenetic inheritance influencing the behavior of future generations and its reversibility during ontogenesis
Freisingerová, Kateřina ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Švorcová, Jana (referee)
The aim of this work is to focus on possible mechanisms of transmission of changes that are conditioned by epigenetic modifications that could affect specific behaviour and phenotype in offspring. The inheritance can be channeled through both maternal and paternal lineages. It can be divided into two distinct groups of transmission, namely intragenerational and transgenerational. This work mainly focuses on the possible mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance. Epigenetic mechanisms leading to changes in the phenotype of an organism rely on influencing the regulation of DNA reading. This occurs at several levels such as DNA methylation, chemical modifications such as acetylation and other post-translational modifications, and most importantly non-coding RNA molecules. Today, countless studies are trying to explain these molecular processes mediated by environmental influences. Well known are maternal care, chemicals, or traumatic experiences. There are examples of traumatic environmental influences in which physiological changes in HPA axis regulation can be observed with consequent changes in the expression of genes for depressive and anxiety phenotypes. Most of the experiments focusing on epigenetic transmission are predominantly conducted in mouse or rat models. However, there are also...
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Cognitive abilities in reptiles: individual learning ability vs. interspecies comparison
Víšková, Linda ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Kverková, Kristina (referee)
The cognitive abilities of "reptiles" have long been a neglected topic compared to research on cognition in two other groups of tetrapods - mammals and birds. Recently, however, studies testing selected aspects of various cognitive abilities in "reptiles" have become quite abundant. In this thesis, the different types of cognitive tasks studied were determined (focusing on numerical abilities, spatial learning, reversal learning, visual discrimination, social learning, "problem-solving" or operant conditioning) and then the methods of testing them in "reptiles" were discussed in detail. Subsequently, within the paraphyletic group "reptiles", the given cognitive abilities for each family (and specific species) were mapped with respect to their phylogeny. A general problem in some studies was the smaller number of subjects tested (minimum 1, maximum 559, median 15) relative to the often great number of factors studied (minimum 1, maximum 14, median 4) and the wide interindividual variability in cognitive performance. Although the amount of work on the cognitive abilities of "reptiles" has been rising over the last decade, qualitative analysis suggests the presence of simpler types of cognition. A quantitative or phylogenetic analysis of "reptilian" cognitive abilities has so far been precluded by low...
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Intensity of biparental care in Columbiformes and other selected bird taxa: a summary of the main ultimate and proximate mechanisms
Kopejtková, Lucie ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Tomášek, Oldřich (referee)
Order Columbiformes is not very numerous group of birds but their importance for recent science and for people in general in significant. They are one of the most studied group of birds and knowledge we now have of parental care and proximal mechanisms of its onset was obtained from this avian order. The main factors related to the development of intensive parental care, biparental care and cooperation between partners in parental care will first be discussed in individual chapters. The main evolutionary constraints and the main conflicts both between the sexes and parent-offspring conflict, which are closely related to the evolution of parental care, will be mentioned. The specific position of Columbiformes from the point of view of ultimate mechanisms will be mentioned. Further chapters should be devoted to the most important proximate mechanisms influencing parental care in Columbiformes. Keywords: Biparental care, Columbiformes, cooperation in parental care, parental conflict, parent-offspring conflict, prolactin
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Psychophysiological correlates induced by visual food stimuli during hunger and satiety
Schlezingerová, Nicol ; Telenský, Petr (advisor) ; Landová, Eva (referee)
Obesity and its increasing prevalence contribute to the development of diseases of affluence, including type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and several cardiovascular, oncological and neuropsychiatric diseases. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanism of food intake at the behavioural level, including the influence of maladaptive factors, such as the frequent exposure to visual high-calorie food stimuli in modern society. In this work, changes in visual attention and selected psychopphysiological correlates (electrodermal activity and salivary biomarkers alpha-amylase and cortisol) in response to visual food stimuli were investigated in healthy, adult non-obese (BMI < 25) volunteers of both sexes. We investigated changes of psychophysiological correlates like visual attention, electrodermal activity and salivary biomarkers (alpha-amylase and cortisol) in response to visual food stimuli in healthy, adult, non-obese (BMI < 25) volunteers of both sexes. Experiment started with questionnaire for self measuring hunger and satiety, saliva sampling and then subject were instructed for presentation of visual food cues of three categories - high-calorie, low-calorie and non-food - they were presented to the subjects on a computer screen. Visual attention to the stimuli was determined using...
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The origin of specific phobia from spiders: Neurophysiological mechanisms vs. testing the assumptions of evolutionary theories explaining the origin of specific phobia from spiders
Hladíková, Tereza ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Telenský, Petr (referee)
Spider phobia is one of the most frequent specific animal phobias in the population. There are two key emotions in the origin of spider phobia: fear and disgust. Several theories of spider phobia origin were proposed and so the results and interpretations of these studies, which test prerequisites of these particular theories often vary. Studies focusing on psychophysiological measurements such as changes in heart activity or skin resistance, show differences in emotion intensity in phobics compared to non-phobics. The second group of studies concerning the analysis of proximate mechanisms attempts to uncover the brain activity during phobic stimulation. These studies mostly agree on the coordination of the cognitive control network and the fear-network with the key role of the amygdala and insula in the phobic reaction. Other studies which test prerequisites of evolutionary theories examine e.g. heritability of specific phobias, speed of spider detection or easier learning and extinction of fear of spiders. The aim of this bachelor thesis is focused on the results of studies uncovering the proximate neurophysiological and psychophysiological mechanisms of specific spider phobia and to discuss these results in relation to the paradigm of evolutionary theories about the origin of this phobia. It is...
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