The response of guide dogs and pet dogs (Canis Familiaris) to cues of human referential communication (pointing and gaze)

The study raises the question of whether guide dogs and pet dogs are expected to differ in response to cues of referential communication given by their owners; especially since guide dogs grow up among sighted humans, and while living with their blind owners, they still have interactions with several sighted people. Guide dogs and pet dogs were required to respond to point, point and gaze, gaze and control cues of referential communication given by their owners. Results indicate that the two groups of dogs do not differ from each other, revealing that the visual status of the owner is not a factor in the use of cues of referential communication. Both groups of dogs have higher frequencies of performance and faster latencies for the point and the point and gaze cues as compared to gaze cue only. However, responses to control cues are below chance performance for the guide dogs, whereas the pet dogs perform at chance. The below chance performance of the guide dogs may be explained by a tendency among them to go and stand by the owner. The study indicates that both groups of dogs respond similarly in normal daily dyadic interaction with their owners and the lower comprehension of the human gaze may be a less salient cue among dogs in comparison to the pointing gesture.     

The role of general and number-specific order processing in adults’ arithmetic performance

Digit order processing is highly related to individual differences in arithmetic performance. To examine whether serial scanning or associative mechanisms underlie order processing, order tasks (i.e. deciding whether three digits were presented in an order or not) were administered in two experiments. In the first experiment, digits were presented in different directions namely ascending, descending and non-ordered. For each direction, close and far distance sequences were presented. Results revealed reversed distance effects for ordered sequences, but ascending sequences elicited faster performance and stronger reversed distance effects than descending sequences, suggesting that associative mechanisms underlie order processing. In the second experiment, it was examined to which extent the relation between order processing and arithmetic is number-specific by presenting order tasks with digits, letters and months. In all order tasks similar distance effects were observed and similar relations with arithmetic were found, suggesting that both general associative mechanisms and number-specific mechanisms contribute to arithmetic.     

The effect of experience and of dots’ density and duration on the detection of coherent motion in dogs

Knowledge about the mechanisms underlying canine vision is far from being exhaustive, especially that concerning post-retinal elaboration. One aspect that has received little attention is motion perception, and in spite of the common belief that dogs are extremely apt at detecting moving stimuli, there is no scientific support for such an assumption. In fact, we recently showed that dogs have higher thresholds than humans for coherent motion detection (Kanizsar et al. in Sci Rep UK 7:11259, 2017). This term refers to the ability of the visual system to perceive several units moving in the same direction, as one coherently moving global unit. Coherent motion perception is commonly investigated using random dot displays, containing variable proportions of coherently moving dots. Here, we investigated the relative contribution of local and global integration mechanisms for coherent motion perception, and changes in detection thresholds as a result of repeated exposure to the experimental stimuli. Dogs who had been involved in the previous study were given a conditioned discrimination task, in which we systematically manipulated dot density and duration and, eventually, re-assessed our subjects’ threshold after extensive exposure to the stimuli. Decreasing dot duration impacted on dogs’ accuracy in detecting coherent motion only at very low duration values, revealing the efficacy of local integration mechanisms. Density impacted on dogs’ accuracy in a linear fashion, indicating less efficient global integration. There was limited evidence of improvement in the re-assessment but, with an average threshold at re-assessment of 29%, dogs’ ability to detect coherent motion remains much poorer than that of humans.     

A comparative approach to dogs’ (Canis familiaris) and human infants’ comprehension of various forms of pointing gestures

We investigated whether dogs and 2-, and 3-year-old human infants living, in some respects, in very similar social environments are able to comprehend various forms of the human pointing gesture. In the first study, we looked at their ability to comprehend different arm pointing gestures (long cross-pointing, forward cross-pointing and elbow cross-pointing) to locate a hidden object. Three-year-olds successfully used all gestures as directional cues, while younger children and dogs could not understand the elbow cross-pointing. Dogs were also unsuccessful with the forward cross-pointing. In the second study, we used unfamiliar pointing gestures i.e. using a leg as indicator (pointing with leg, leg cross-pointing, pointing with knee). All subjects were successful with leg pointing gestures, but only older children were able to comprehend the pointing with knee. We suggest that 3-year-old children are able to rely on the direction of the index finger, and show the strongest ability to generalize to unfamiliar gestures. Although some capacity to generalize is also evident in younger children and dogs, especially the latter appear biased in the use of protruding body parts as directional signals.     

Infants’ responsiveness to the auditory and visual attributes of a sounding/moving stimulus

Responses to unimodal and multimodal attributes of a compouMauxlitoryMsuat stimulus were investigated in 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-month-old infants. First, infants were habituated to a compound stimulus consisting of a visual stimulus that moved up anddown on a video monitor and a sound that occurred each time the visual stimulus reversed direction at the bottom. Once each infant met a habituation criterion, a series of test trials was administered to assess responsiveness to the components of the compound stimulus. Response was defined as the total duration of visual fixation in each trial. In the two unimodal test trials, the rate at which the component was presented was changed while the rate of the other component remained the same, whereas in the bimodal test trial the rate of both components was changed simultaneously. Results indicated that infants at each age successfully discriminated the bimodal and the two unimodal changes and that regression to the mean did not account for the results. Results also showed that disruption of the temporal relationship that accompanied the change in rate in the two unimodal test trials was also discriminable, but rate changes appeared to play a greater role in responsiveness than did synchrony changes. Considered together with results from similar prior studies, the current results are consistent with the modality appropriateness hypothesis in showing that discrimination of temporal changes in the auditory and visual modalities is dependent on the specialization of the sensory modalities.     

The insistence of vision: Why do people look at a salient stimulus when it signals target absence?

Researchers and practitioners across many fields would benefit from the ability to predict human search time in complex visual displays. However, a missing element in our ability to predict search time is our ability to quantify the exogenous attraction of visual objects in terms of their impact on search time. The current work represents an initial step in this direction. We present two experiments using a quadrant search task to investigate how exogenous and endogenous factors influence human visual search. In Experiment 1, we measure the oculomotor capture—or the tendency of a stimulus to elicit a saccade—of a salient quadrant under conditions in which the salient quadrant does not predict target location. Despite the irrelevance of quadrant salience, we find that subjects persist in making saccades towards the salient quadrant at above-chance levels. We then present a Bayesian-based ideal performer model that predicts search time and oculomotor capture when the salient quadrant never contains the search target. Experiment 2 tested the predictions of the ideal performer model and revealed human performance to be in close correspondence with the model. We conclude that, in our speeded search task, the influence of an exogenous attractor on saccades can be quantified in terms of search time costs and, when these costs are considered, both search time and search behaviour reflect a boundedly optimal adaptation to the cost structure of the environment.     

Should older people be considered a homogeneous group when interacting with level 3 automated vehicles?

Exploring the future mobility of older people is imperative for maintaining wellbeing and quality of life in an ageing society. The forthcoming level 3 automated vehicle may potentially benefit older people. In a level 3 automated vehicle, the driver can be completely disengaged from driving while, under some circumstances, being expected to take over the control occasionally. Existing research into older people and level 3 automated vehicles considers older people to be a homogeneous group, but it is not clear if different sub-groups of old people have different performance and perceptions when interacting with automated vehicles. To fill this research gap, a driving simulator investigation was conducted. We adopted a between-subjects experimental design with subgroup of old age as the independent variable. The differences in performance, behaviour, and perception towards level 3 automated vehicles between the younger old group (60–69 years old) and older old group (70 years old and over) was investigated. 15 subjects from the younger old group (mean age = 64.87 years, SD = 3.46 years) and 24 from the older old group (mean age = 75.13 years, SD = 3.35 years) participated in the study. The findings indicate that older people should not be regarded as a homogeneous group when interacting with automated vehicle. Compared to the younger old people, the older old people took over the control of the vehicle more slowly, and their takeover was less stable and more critical. However, both groups exhibited positive perceptions towards level 3 automation, and the of older old people’s perceptions were significantly more positive. This study demonstrated the importance of recognising older people as a heterogeneous group in terms of their performance, capabilities, needs and requirements when interacting with automated vehicles. This may have implications in the design of such systems and also understanding the market for autonomous mobility.     

A functional analysis of personal autonomy: How restricting ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ affects experienced agency and goal motivation

Personal autonomy is central to people's experiences of agency and abilities to actively take part in society. To address the challenges of supporting autonomy, we propose a functional model of autonomy, according to which the experience of agency is a function of the opportunity to determine what to do, when to act and how to act in goal-pursuit. We tested the model in three experiments where the three goal-pursuit components could be constrained by another person or an artificial intelligence (AI) agent. Results showed that removing any of the three components from one's own decisions reduced experienced agency (Study 1a and 1b) and lowered motivation to pursue goals in organisational contexts (Study 2). In comparison to the strong and robust main effects, interactions between the components and the effects of the source of restriction (human vs. AI) were negligible. Implications for personal autonomy, algorithmic decision-making and behaviour change interventions are discussed.     

What’s the point? Domestic dogs’ sensitivity to the accuracy of human informants

Animal Cognition - Dogs excel at understanding human social-communicative gestures like points and can distinguish between human informants who vary in characteristics such as knowledge or...     

The Thought of Building a Human Community with a Shared Future: Inheritance and Innovation to Marx’ s Thought of Community

Marx’s thought of community has experienced three stages in logic and is rooted in the social fundamental contradictions between productive forces and universal communication in content. It reflects the evolution of history into world history and human’s free and all-round development tending towards the unity of individuals and communities. Faced with the profound changes never seen in a century, the thought of building a human community with a shared future inherits and carries forward Marx’s idea of community in three aspects, i.e., the practice of building a social community, the ultimate focus on human destiny, and the grand vision of promoting historical development in human society. In addition, under the historical context of socialism and capitalism coexisting, the thought of building a human community with a shared future creates and shows a new state of Marx’s idea of community in three aspects, namely, dimension remodeling, path reshaping, and value reinterpretation. It presents a new model for historical significance and human civilization of a world of openness, probability and promise to promote the transformation from the modern society to a human society.     

Caregivers’ emotional competence and behavioral responsiveness as correlates of early childcare workers’ relationships with children in their care

In the current study, we examined associations among early childcare workers’ emotional competence, observed responsiveness, comfort with socioemotional teaching practices, and the quality of their relationships with children in their care. The participants were 100 early childcare workers (72 center-based Early Head Start teachers and 28 family childcare providers). Results showed that caregivers’ emotion regulation ability was positively associated with caregiver–child relational closeness. Understanding and regulation of emotion were both positively associated with childcare workers’ comfort with socioemotional teaching practices. Their observed responsiveness was positively related to relational closeness and negatively related to relational conflict. Findings are consistent with aspects of the prosocial classroom model, which asserts that educators high in emotional and social competence tend to adopt childcare practices that result in supportive relationships with children. Results provide insight into whether childcare workers’ responsiveness to young children and their perceived socioemotional teaching practices provide a pathway between emotional competence and the quality of caregiver–child relationships.     

The recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narratives about a long-ago tornado

The recollective qualities of autobiographical memory are thought to develop over the course of the first two decades of life. We used a 9-year follow-up test of recall of a devastating tornado and of non-tornado-related events from before and after the storm, to compare the recollective qualities of adolescents’ (n?=?20, ages 11 years, 11 months to 20 years, 8 months) and adults’ (n?=?14) autobiographical memories. At the time of the tornado, half of the adolescents had been younger than age 6. Nine years after the event, all participants provided evidence that they recall the event of the tornado. Adults also had high levels of recall of the non-tornado-related events. Adolescents recalled proportionally fewer non-tornado-related events; adolescents younger than 6 at the time of the events recalled the fewest non-tornado-related events. Relative to adolescents, adults produced longer narratives. With narrative length controlled, there were few differences in the recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narrative reports, especially in the case of the tornado; the recollective qualities were stronger among adolescents older at the time of the events. Overall, participants in both age groups provided evidence of the qualities of recollection that are characteristic of autobiographical memory.     

The effects of the constancy of location and order in working memory visual–phonological binding of children with dyslexia

It has been suggested that children with dyslexia have difficulties in visual–phonological working memory (WM) binding, supporting the hypothesis that this ability is crucial in the formation of associations between written forms and phonological codes required by reading. However, research on this topic is currently scarce and has not clarified to what extent binding may be supported by spatial and temporal information. The present study examined visual–phonological WM binding performance in a group of children with dyslexia compared to a control group of typically developing children matched for age, gender, and grade. Children had to memorize ephemeral associations between meaningless shapes and nonwords, with stimuli presented in either fixed or variable spatial locations, and in either fixed or variable temporal order across trials; performance was assessed using a recognition task. Results showed that children with dyslexia have a deficit in visual–phonological WM binding in every presentation condition and that, unlike control children, they are not able to use fixed spatial locations as an aid to bind information. Crucially, however, children with dyslexia still benefit from the presentation of stimuli in a fixed temporal order. These findings support the hypothesis that a WM binding deficit is crucial in children with dyslexia, and have potential implications for treatment strategies.     

Children’s Acceptance of Others with Disability: The Influence of a Disability-Simulation Program

Elementary school is a transitional and impressionable period for any child. In inclusive classroom settings, children with disabilities may experience the challenges of acceptance and integration into peer relationships. The experience of children with disabilities in such classrooms can be positive if their classmates are accepting and open. One way to encourage these attitudes is by increasing awareness through disability-simulation. This study evaluates an existing school program, whose goal is to increase acceptance of others with disability. We surveyed students to assess the influence of the program. An adapted acceptance scale was distributed to students before and after participation in the program. Our hypothesis was that student acceptance would increase after participating in the program. Additionally, we hypothesized that physical, visual, and auditory disabilities would be easier for students to understand, making acceptance scores for these disabilities higher than those for a learning disability. We report changes in acceptance using group means. Our results reveal that post-survey responses showed higher acceptance than pre-survey responses, especially for auditory disabilities. Other significant findings include differences in attitudes between the two schools and differences based on prior experience with someone with a disability. By evaluating the effectiveness of this type of program (whose efficacy has been controversial in the literature), this study can provide teachers, administrators, genetic counselors, and parents with a better idea of how to address children’s attitudes towards peers. In our study, the effectiveness of promoting understanding through disability-simulation has proven its worth to improve children’s acceptance.     

Experimental test of a planning intervention for forming a ‘higher order’ health-habit

Abstract

Objective: Habit-formation interventions may help individuals initiate and maintain behaviour change. This paper proposes and empirically tests the idea that it is possible for individuals to form ‘higher-order habits’, or behaviours that can be executed in more than one way, and still be habitual.

Design: Participants (N?=?82) were healthy adults randomly assigned to an action-and-coping-planning intervention for forming a ‘higher-order habit’ of filling half of their dinner plates with fruits and vegetables or a control condition. Key measures were collected at baseline and 1, 2 and 3 weeks post-baseline. Participants submitted 3 pictures per week of their dinner plates via snapchat/email.

Main Outcome Measures: Intrinsic motivation, habit strength and behavioural frequency for filling half their dinner plates with fruits and vegetables.

Results: Intervention participants reported significantly greater habit strength at each follow-up time point. Controls did show some degree of habit formation, despite not fully forming a habit. Behavioural automaticity increased despite consuming a variety of fruits/vegetables; results did not depend on participants’ intrinsic motivation to consume fruits/vegetables.

Conclusion: It may be possible for individuals to form ‘higher-order’ habits, which may be particularly important in health contexts, in which many target behaviours are complex and can be seen as higher-order.     

Dogs’ comprehension of referential emotional expressions: familiar people and familiar emotions are easier

Dogs have been shown to discriminate between human facial expressions, and they seem to use human emotional communication to regulate their behaviour towards an external object/situation. However, it is still not clear (1) whether they just respond to the emotional message received with a corresponding increase/decrease in their level of activation or whether they perceive that the emotional message refers to a specific object, (2) which emotional message they use to modify their behaviour (i.e. whether they are following the positive message or avoiding the negative one) and (3) whether their familiarity with the informant has an effect on the dogs’ behaviour. To address these issues, five groups of dogs were tested in two experiments. The first group observed the owner delivering two different emotional messages (happiness and fear) towards two identical objects hidden behind barriers, and the second group observed the owner delivering the same emotional messages but with no-objects present in the room. The third and the fourth groups observed the owner delivering a happy versus a neutral, and a negative versus a neutral emotional message towards the hidden objects. Finally, the fifth group observed a stranger acting like the owner of the first group. When the owner was acting as the informant, dogs seemed to be capable of distinguishing between a fearful and happy emotional expression and preferentially chose to investigate a box eliciting an expression of happiness rather than of fear or neutrality. Dogs, however, seemed to have greater difficulty in distinguishing between the fearful and neutral emotional messages delivered by the owner and between the happy and fearful expressions delivered by the stranger. Results suggest that dogs have learned to associate their owners’ positive emotional messages to positive outcomes, and hence use their communicative messages to guide their actions. However, negative emotional messages and those delivered by strangers are not as clear to dogs.