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Horowitz, A., & Hecht, J. (2016). Examining dog–human play: the characteristics, affect, and vocalizations of a unique interspecific interaction. Anim. Cogn., , 1–10.
Abstract: Despite the growing interest in research on the interaction between humans and dogs, only a very few research projects focus on the routines between dogs and their owners. In this study, we investigated one such routine: dog–human play. Dyadic interspecific play is known to be a common interaction between owner and charge, but the details of what counts as play have not been thoroughly researched. Similarly, though people represent that “play” is pleasurable, no study has yet undertaken to determine whether different forms of play are associated with different affective states. Thus, we aimed to generate an inventory of the forms of dyadic play, the vocalizations within play, and to investigate the relationship of affect to elements of play. Via a global citizen science project, we solicited videotapes of dog–human play sessions from dog owners. We coded 187 play bouts via frame-by-frame video playback. We then assessed the relationship between various intra-bout variables and owner affect (positive or neutral) during play (dog affect was overwhelmingly positive). Amount of physical contact (“touch”), level of activity of owner (“movement”), and physical closeness of dog–owner dyad (“proximity”) were highly correlated with positive affect. Owner vocalizations were found to contain different elements in positive- and neutral-affect play. One novel category of play, “tease”, was found. We conclude that not all play is created equal: the experience of play to the owner participant is strongly related to a few identifiable characteristics of the interaction.
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Hölker, S. (2016). Typologie der deutschen Pferdehaltung – Eine empirische Studie mittels Two-Step-Clusteranalyse. Z. Agrarpolit. Landwirtsch., 94(3).
Abstract: In der deutschen Pferdebranche besteht u. a. hinsichtlich der Ausrichtung, Lage, Größe und ökonomischen Zielsetzung von Pferdehaltern eine große Heterogenität, gleichzeitig sind die Strukturen in diesem Sektor bislang kaum wissenschaftlich erfasst. Aus diesem Grund wird im vorliegenden Beitrag die Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Erscheinungsformen in der Pferdehaltung mittels einer empirisch gestützten Typologie systematisch beschrieben. Mittels einer standardisierten Onlinebefragung wurden 1.110 private, landwirtschaftliche und gewerbliche Pferdehalter sowie pferdehaltende Vereine befragt. Abgefragt wurden neben der Organisationsform, Bestandsgröße und der Ausrichtung auch Aspekte wie u. a. die Ausstattung der Anlage, die angewandten Haltungssysteme für die Pferde sowie Angaben zur zukünftige Entwicklung und den wahrgenommenen aktuellen sowie zukünftigen Herausforderungen in der Pferdehaltung. Mittels einer Clusteranalyse konnten sechs Typen herausgearbeitet werden: ländliche Hobbypferdehaltung, stadtorientierte Hobbypferdehaltung, Hobby-Zuchtpferdehaltung, Zuchtpferdehaltung, Pensionspferdehaltung und diversifizierte Pferdehaltung. Dabei sind die drei erstgenannten Typen der Liebhaberei zuzuordnen und die drei letztgenannten Typen werden mit Gewinnerzielungsabsicht betrieben. Die ermittelten Typen unterscheiden sich teilweise signifikant u. a. hinsichtlich ihrer Größe, den angewandten Haltungssystemen, der Anzahl an Betriebszweigen oder auch ihren zukünftig geplanten Entwicklungen. Die vorliegende Studie zeigt somit, dass beispielsweise bei der Entwicklung politischer Maßnahmen im Bereich der Pferdehaltung die Auswirkungen für einzelne Pferdehalter sehr unterschiedlich ausfallen können und es daher notwendig ist, die unterschiedlichen, real existierenden Betriebstypen zu berücksichtigen.
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Imbert, C., Caniglia, R., Fabbri, E., Milanesi, P., Randi, E., Serafini, M., et al. (2016). Why do wolves eat livestock?: Factors influencing wolf diet in northern Italy. Biological Conservation, 195, 156–168.
Abstract: Thanks to protection by law and increasing habitat restoration, wolves (Canis lupus) are currently re-colonizing Europe from the surviving populations of Russia, the Balkan countries, Spain and Italy, raising the need to update conservation strategies. A major conservation issue is to restore connections and gene flow among fragmented populations, thus contrasting the deleterious consequences of isolation. Wolves in Italy are expanding from the Apennines towards the Alps, crossing the Ligurian Mountains (northern Italy) and establishing connections with the Dinaric populations. Wolf expansion is threatened by poaching and incidental killings, mainly due to livestock depredations and conflicts with shepherds, which could limit the establishment of stable populations. Aiming to find out the factors affecting the use of livestock by wolves, in this study we determined the composition of wolf diet in Liguria. We examined 1457 scats collected from 2008 to 2013. Individual scats were genotyped using a non-invasive genetic procedure, and their content was determined using microscopical analyses. Wolves in Liguria consumed mainly wild ungulates (64.4%; in particular wild boar Sus scrofa and roe deer Capreolus capreolus) and, to a lesser extent, livestock (26.3%; in particular goats Capra hircus). We modeled the consumption of livestock using environmental features, wild ungulate community diversity, husbandry characteristics and wolf social organization (stable packs or dispersing individuals). Wolf diet varied according to years and seasons with an overall decrease of livestock and an increase of wild ungulate consumption, but also between packs and dispersing individuals with greater livestock consumption for the latter. The presence of stable packs, instead of dispersing wolves, the adoption of prevention measures on pastures, roe deer abundance, and the percentage of deciduous woods, reduced predation on livestock. Thus, we suggest promoting wild ungulate expansion, the use of prevention tools in pastures, and supporting wolf pack establishment, avoiding lethal control and poaching, to mitigate conflicts between wolf conservation and husbandry.
Keywords: Scat analysis; Feeding ecology; Prey selection; Wolf-human conflicts
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Koistinen, T., Korhonen, H. T., Hämäläinen, E., & Mononen, J. (2016). Blue foxes' (Vulpes lagopus) motivation to gain access and interact with various resources. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 176, 105–111.
Abstract: We analysed the willingness of blue foxes (Vulpes lagopus) to work for and utilise five resources: a platform, wooden block, sand floor, nest box and empty space. Ten juvenile blue fox males were housed singly in apparatus consisting of three cages connected with one-way doors through the walls in between the cages and subjected to work for each of the five resources, one at a time. The resource was placed in one of the outermost cages of the apparatus. Force needed to open the door leading to the resource cage was increased daily by 0.25 or 0.5kg. The number of daily entries, visit durations and interaction with the resource were recorded on workloads of 0, 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 5, 6.5, and 8kg of extra weight. The latency to start interacting with the resource after entering the resource cage was measured on a workload of 3.5kg. The mean number of daily entries in the resource and the other outermost, i.e. control cage varied from 7 to 28 and from 17 to 44, respectively. The increasing workload decreased the number of entries in the resource cage, increased those in the control cage (Linear Mixed Model: F1,638=79.5, P<0.001) and lengthened the visit durations in both cages (F1,642=7.2, P<0.01). The foxes made most (F4,643=9.0, P<0.001) and shortest (F4,641=2.8, P<0.05) visits to the outermost cages when the available resource was either a platform or empty space. The visit durations were longest when the available resource was a nest box. The foxes interacted regularly with the wooden block, but five foxes were not observed interacting with the platform. The nest box was utilised approximately 50% of the time spent in the resource cage, while the platform was utilised only 1-6% and wooden block 2-17% of the time. The mean latency to start interacting with the resource after entering the resource cage was shortest for the sand floor (8s) and longest for the platform (113s, F3,335=26.3, P<0.001). The results show that the foxes re-scheduled their activities on increasing workloads in the apparatus. Based on the number of entries and visit durations, blue foxes valued the wooden block, nest box and sand floor more than the platform or an empty cage. After entering the resource cage, the foxes started interacting fastest with the sand floor, showing high motivation to interact. After entering the resource cage, the foxes make use of the roof of the nest box more urgently than the interior of the nest box. Long bouts in the cage with nest box indicate resting behaviour.
Keywords: Cage; Enrichment; Fur farming; Latency
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Leliveld, L. M. C., Düpjan, S., Tuchscherer, A., & Puppe, B. (2016). Behavioural and physiological measures indicate subtle variations in the emotional valence of young pigs. Physiol. Behav., 157, 116–124.
Abstract: Abstract In the study of animal emotions, emotional valence has been found to be difficult to measure. Many studies of farm animals' emotions have therefore focussed on the identification of indicators of strong, mainly negative, emotions. However, subtle variations in emotional valence, such as those caused by rather moderate differences in husbandry conditions, may also affect animals' mood and welfare when such variations occur consistently. In this study, we investigated whether repeated moderate aversive or rewarding events could lead to measurable differences in emotional valence in young, weaned pigs. We conditioned 105 female pigs in a test arena to either a repeated startling procedure (sudden noises or appearances of objects) or a repeated rewarding procedure (applesauce, toy and straw) over 11 sessions. Control pigs were also regularly exposed to the same test arena but without conditioning. Before and after conditioning, we measured heart rate and its variability as well as the behavioural reactions of the subjects in the test arena, with a special focus on detailed acoustic analyses of their vocalisations. The behavioural and heart rate measures were analysed as changes compared to the baseline values before conditioning. A limited number of the putative indicators of emotional valence were affected by the conditioning. We found that the negatively conditioned pigs showed changes that were significantly different from those in control pigs, namely a decrease in locomotion and an increase in standing. The positively conditioned pigs, however, showed a stronger increase in heart rate and a smaller decrease in SDNN (a heart rate variability parameter indicating changes in autonomic regulation) compared to the controls. Compared to the negatively conditioned pigs, the positively conditioned pigs produced fewer vocalisations overall as well as fewer low-frequency grunts but more high-frequency grunts. The low-frequency grunts of the negatively conditioned pigs also showed lower frequency parameters (bandwidth, maximum frequency, 25% and 50% quartiles) compared to those of the positively conditioned pigs. In any of the statistically significant results, the conditioning accounted for 1.5–11.9% of variability in the outcome variable. Hence, we conclude that repeated moderate aversive and rewarding events have weak but measurable effects on some aspects of behaviour and physiology in young pigs, possibly indicating changes in emotional valence, which could ultimately affect their welfare. The combination of ethophysiological indicators, i.e., the concurrent examination of heart rate measures, behavioural responses and especially vocalisation patterns, as used in the current study, might be a useful way of examining subtle effects on emotional valence in further studies.
Keywords: Emotion; Heart rate; Vocalisation; Emotional valence; Animal welfare; Domestic pig
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Löckener, S., Reese, S., Erhard, M., & Wöhr, A. - C. (2016). Pasturing in herds after housing in horseboxes induces a positive cognitive bias in horses. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 11, 50–55.
Abstract: Abstract Horses are kept in various housing systems, for example, with conspecifics in horse pens or singly in horseboxes, with or without pasturing. To provide appropriate living conditions for horses, it is necessary to know in which conditions they feel well or unwell. Here, a cognitive bias assessment provides information about an individual's affective state and its well-being. When a positive affective state prevails, animals tend to judge optimistically in ambiguous situations. When a negative affective state prevails, animals judge pessimistically in unclear situations. In the present study, we trained horses on a spatial discrimination task and evaluated their judgment of ambiguous locations when they had access to pastures and contact to conspecifics versus when they were kept singly in horseboxes. Ten days of pasturing and contact with conspecifics after being kept singly in horseboxes for 6 months induced a positive cognitive bias in the horses. We suggest that horses need to act out certain behaviors like exploration, social interaction, play, or grooming to fulfill their needs. After a time in which they were individually in horseboxes without pasturing and access to the herd, they seem to have a positive cognitive bias once they have access to pastures and conspecifics. This positive cognitive bias effect seems to disappear over time, as horses appear to adapt to the circumstances.
Keywords: judgment bias; affect; environmental enrichment; well-being; discrimination task; horse
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Malavasi, R., & Huber, L. (2016). Evidence of heterospecific referential communication from domestic horses (Equus caballus) to humans. Anim. Cogn., 19(5), 899–909.
Abstract: Referential communication occurs when a sender elaborates its gestures to direct the attention of a recipient to its role in pursuit of the desired goal, e.g. by pointing or showing an object, thereby informing the recipient what it wants. If the gesture is successful, the sender and the recipient focus their attention simultaneously on a third entity, the target. Here we investigated the ability of domestic horses (Equus caballus) to communicate referentially with a human observer about the location of a desired target, a bucket of food out of reach. In order to test six operational criteria of referential communication, we manipulated the recipient’s (experimenter) attentional state in four experimental conditions: frontally oriented, backward oriented, walking away from the arena and frontally oriented with other helpers present in the arena. The rate of gaze alternation was higher in the frontally oriented condition than in all the others. The horses appeared to use both indicative (pointing) and non-indicative (nods and shakes) head gestures in the relevant test conditions. Horses also elaborated their communication by switching from a visual to a tactile signal and demonstrated perseverance in their communication. The results of the tests revealed that horses used referential gestures to manipulate the attention of a human recipient so to obtain an unreachable resource. These are the first such findings in an ungulate species.
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Marinsek, N. L., Gazzaniga, M. S., & Miller, M. B. (2016). Chapter 17 – Split-Brain, Split-Mind. In S. Laureys, O. Gosseries, & G. Tononi (Eds.), The Neurology of Conciousness (Second Edition) (pp. 271–279). San Diego: Academic Press.
Abstract: The corpus callosum anatomically and functionally connects the two cerebral hemispheres. Despite its important role in interhemispheric communication however, severing the corpus callosum produces few--if any--noticeable cognitive or behavioral abnormalities. Incredibly, split-brain patients do not report any drastic changes in their conscious experience even though nearly all interhemispheric communication ceases after surgery. Extensive research has shown that both hemispheres remain conscious following disconnection and the conscious experience of each hemisphere is private and independent of the other. Additionally, the conscious experiences of the hemispheres appear to be qualitatively different, such that the consciousness of the left hemisphere is more enriched than the right. In this chapter, we offer explanations as to why split-brain patients feel unified despite possessing dual conscious experiences and discuss how the divided consciousness of split-brain patients can inform current theories of consciousness.
Keywords: Split-brain; consciousness; lateralization; modular; left hemisphere interpreter
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Marr, I., Bauer, T., Farmer, K., & Krueger, K. (2016). Gibt die sensorische Lateralität im Objekttest Aufschluss über das Interieur, den aktuellen Gemütszustand, oder den Trainingszustand der Pferde? In 33. FFP-Jahrestagung.
Abstract: Vor dem obersten Ziel der klassischen Ausbildungsskala für Pferde, die Versammlung, steht das Geraderichten. Ein jedes Pferd ist jedoch von Geburt an asymmetrisch, also schief. Hinter dieser Schiefe verbirgt sich nicht nur die natürliche Schiefe (asymmetrische muskuläre Entwicklung der beiden Körperhälften), die von Geburt an zu beobachten ist, sondern auch die sensorische und motorische Lateralität, also dem ungleichmäßigen Gebrauch der rechten oder linken Sinnesorgane sowie Gliedmaßen, der sich mit der Reifung des Gehirns entwickelt. Alle drei müssen als eigenständige Faktoren, die sich gegenseitig beeinflussen, gesehen werden (Krüger 2014). Um den Weg des Geraderichtens zu erleichtern, sollte in der Ausbildung eines Pferdes nicht nur an der natürlichen Schiefe gearbeitet werden, sondern auch die sensorische und motorische Lateralität beachtet werden um den Prozess des Geraderichtens für das Pferd zu erleichtern. Die sensorische und motorische Lateralität resultiert aus der Aufgabenteilung/Spezialisierung beider Gehirnhälften (Hemisphären) (Rogers 2010). Die rechte Hemisphäre ist dabei für die Verarbeitung von Emotionen (z.B. Angst, Aggression, Freude, Zufriedenheit) sowie für lebenserhaltende Spontanreaktionen zuständig. Die linke Hemisphäre ist für die rationale Verarbeitung von Informationen essentiell (Adolphs et al. 1996, Rogers 2010, Austin und Rogers 2012, De Boyer Des Roches et al. 2008, Demaree et al. 2005, Austin und Rogers 2014). Rückschlüsse auf die Informationsverarbeitung lassen sich über die Beobachtung der verwendeten Sinnesorgane (Ohren und Augen) ziehen, die kontralateral mit den Großhirnhemisphären verbunden sind (Brooks et al. 1999). Es wird vermutet, dass Stress zu einer verstärkten Informationsverarbeitung durch die rechte Großhirnhemisphäre führt (Rogers 2010, Schultheiss et al. 2009). Diese konnte auch in ersten Untersuchungen am Pferd bestätigt werden (unveröffentlichte Daten). Forscher, die den einseitigen Gebrauch von rechten und linken Gliedmaßen (motorische Lateralität) bei Menschen und Tieren untersuchten, zeigten weiterhin Zusammenhänge zur Emotionalität und Reaktivität (McGreevy und Thomson 2006, Rogers 2009, Austin und Rogers 2012, Deesing und Grandin 2014). Die Tendenz zum einseitigen Gebrauch der Gliedmaßen gibt Hinweise auf den „Cognitive Bias“ (= individuelle, kognitive Verzerrung der Wahrnehmung und Verarbeitung von Informationen ins Positive oder Negative) und steht im Zusammenhang mit der persönlichen Neigung auf Stressfaktoren zu reagieren (zusammengefasst von Rogers 2010). Die sensorische Lateralität ändert sich jedoch schneller und situationsgebundener als die motorische Lateralität. Sie wird mittels Objekttests bestimmt, die ebenfalls verwendet werden können um die Reaktivität und Emotionalität zu untersuchen. Für eine objektivere Beurteilung des Interieurs eines Pferdes ist daher zu überlegen, ob die sensorische Lateralität als objektiver Parameter integriert werden kann, welchen Einflüssen diese unterliegt und mit welchen Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen sie korreliert. Wie in der Studie von Farmer et al. (2010) dargestellt werden konnte, zeigten bilateral trainierte Pferde eine weniger stark ausgeprägte Präferenz für die linken Sinnesorgane als traditionell trainierte Pferde in Tests mit Personen (ohne Interaktion). Es stellt sich daher die Frage, ob diese Beobachtung ein Resultat von langjährigem Training ist oder ob es sich bereits nach wenigen Wochen Training einstellt sowie ob solche Entwicklungen auch bei Objekten beobachtet werden können.
Für die erste Untersuchung ergaben sich daher in dieser Studie folgende Fragstellungen: Sind die Ergebnisse eines Objekttests mit Evaluierung der sensorischen Lateralität hinsichtlich der Lateralität wiederholbar? Denn, sollte es möglich sein mittels der sensorische Lateralität auf bestimmte Persönlichkeitsmerkmale rückschließen zu können, so muss diese genauso stabil und reproduzierbar sein, wie die betreffenden Persönlichkeitsmerkmale. Unterscheiden sich Pferde hinsichtlich ihrer Lateralität in Objekttests, die bereits intensiv gleichmäßig beidseitig trainiert wurden, von Pferden, bei denen weniger Augenmerk auf gleichmäßiges beidseitiges Training gelegt wurde? Kann die Lateralität in Objekttests mit einer definierten gleichmäßigen beidseitigen Trainingsmethode beeinflusst werden? In welche Richtung verschiebt sich gegebenenfalls die Lateralität? Beeinflusst das Alter gegebenenfalls das Ausmaß von Veränderungen, da sich die sensorische Lateralität mit der Reifung des Gehirns entwickelt? |
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Mejdell, C. M., Buvik, T., Jørgensen, G. H. M., & Bøe, K. E. (2016). Horses can learn to use symbols to communicate their preferences. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 184, 66–73.
Abstract: Abstract This paper describes a method in which horses learn to communicate by touching different neutral visual symbols, in order to tell the handler whether they want to have a blanket on or not. Horses were trained for 10–15 min per day, following a training program comprising ten steps in a strategic order. Reward based operant conditioning was used to teach horses to approach and touch a board, and to understand the meaning of three different symbols. Heat and cold challenges were performed to help learning and to check level of understanding. At certain stages, a learning criterion of correct responses for 8–14 successive trials had to be achieved before proceeding. After introducing the free choice situation, on average at training day 11, the horse could choose between a “no change” symbol and the symbol for either “blanket on” or “blanket off” depending on whether the horse already wore a blanket or not. A cut off point for performance or non-performance was set to day 14, and 23/23 horses successfully learned the task within this limit. Horses of warm-blood type needed fewer training days to reach criterion than cold-bloods (P < 0.05). Horses were then tested under differing weather conditions. Results show that choices made, i.e. the symbol touched, was not random but dependent on weather. Horses chose to stay without a blanket in nice weather, and they chose to have a blanket on when the weather was wet, windy and cold (χ2 = 36.67, P < 0.005). This indicates that horses both had an understanding of the consequence of their choice on own thermal comfort, and that they successfully had learned to communicate their preference by using the symbols. The method represents a novel tool for studying preferences in horses.
Keywords: Operant conditioning; Blanket; Rug; Thermoregulation; Cognition; Clicker training
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