772 research outputs found
What Dogs Know
My dog understands me! At least, many dog owners think so. New scientific studies actually show that dogs understand a lot about us humans. For example, they can figure out what humans can and cannot see. Some dogs can even distinguish large numbers of toys by name, like Rico, the internationally famous Border collie. But do dogs also understand our emotions? Can they grasp cause and effect relationships? What fascinates us humans about dogs? Is it only the proverbial âpuppy dog eyesâ that make dogs look sympathetic? Or is it the fact that these animals have grown very well-attuned to humans and are willing to cooperate with them? In a total of ten chapters, Juliane BrĂ€uer and Juliane Kaminski present the results of the most important scientific studies of the last twenty years on dog cognition.1 Why Dogs? --- p. 1 2 How Wolves Became Dogs --- p. 11 3 Dogs Are Not Wolves --- p. 27 4 What Do Dogs Understand About Others? --- p. 45 5 Do Dogs Learn by Observing Others? --- p. 61 6 How Do Dogs Interpret Human Gestures? --- p. 79 7 Communication Between Dogs and Humans --- p. 95 8 What Do Dogs Know About Their Environment? --- p. 119 9 When Dogs Help --- p. 143 10 Looking Ahead --- p. 15
The dissonance between knowing animals are sentient beings yet eating them: Commentary on Rowan et al. on Sentience Politics
Animal sentience is linked to the bigger picture of climate and health crises and âcarnismâ is a factor in the dissonance among (1) knowing animals are sentient, (2) caring about their feelings, and (3) not acting accordingly. We discuss our responsibility as researchers and as individual human beings.1. Crises of our time 2. Individual responsibility 3. âCarnismâ: an unconscious belief system 4. What can we as researchers do about it
Dogs display owner-specific expectations based on olfaction
Most current knowledge about dogsâ understanding of, and reacting to, their environment is limited to the visual or auditory modality, but it remains unclear how olfaction and cognition are linked together. Here we investigate how domestic dogs search for their owners using their excellent olfactory sense. We raise the question whether dogs have a representation of someone when they smell their track. The question is what they expect when they follow a trail or whether they perceive an odour as a relevant or non-relevant stimulus. We adopted a classical violation-of-expectation paradigmâand as targets we used two persons that were both important to the dog, usually the owners. In the critical condition subjects could track the odour trail of one target, but at the end of the trail they find another target. Dogs showed an increased activity when the person did not correspond with the trail compared to a control condition. Moreover, we found huge individual differences in searching behaviour supporting the assumption that dogs are only able to smell when they really sniff, and that the temperature has an influence on dogs performance. Results are discussed in the light of how cognitive abilities, motivation and odour perception influence each other.Methods - Subjects. - Setup. - Procedure. - Design. - Coding and analysis. Results Discussio
Effect of shared information and owner behavior on showing in dogs (Canis familiaris)
Dogsâ production of referential communicative signals, i.e., showing, has gained increasing scientific interest over the last years. In this paper, we investigate whether shared information about the present and the past affects success and form of dogâhuman interactions. Second, in the context of showing, owners have always been treated as passive receivers of the dogâs signals. Therefore, we examined whether the ownerâs behavior can influence the success and form of their dogâs showing behavior. To address these questions, we employed a hidden-object task with knowledgeable dogs and naĂŻve owners. Shared information about the present was varied via the spatial set-up, i.e., position of hiding places, within dogâowner pairs, with two conditions requiring either high or low precision in indicating the target location. Order of conditions varied between pairs, representing differences in shared knowledge about the past (communication history). Results do not support an effect of communication history on either success or showing effort. In contrast, the spatial set-up was found to affect success and choice of showing strategies. However, dogs did not adjust their showing effort according to different spatial set-ups. Our results suggest that the latter could be due to the ownerâs influence. Owner behavior generally increased the effort of their dogâs showing behavior which was stronger in the set-up requiring low showing precision. Moreover, our results suggest that owners could influence their dogâs showing accuracy (and thereby success) which, however, tended to be obstructive.Introduction Showing Shared information and the principle of least effort The present study Materials and methods subjects materials and set-up prodedure; pretest test design behavioral coding statistical analysis) Results overall success distribution of showing types effect of correct showing, condition and time on success effect of condition and time on showing effort correlation between showing accuracy and seconds effect of owner behavior on correct showing effect of owner behavior on showing effort) Discussion Communication about the hidden objectâs location Sensitivity to spatial setâup and communication history The principle of least effort and the ownerâs influence on it Limitations and implications for future researc
Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action
When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? We tested dogsâ ability to discriminate these action categories by adapting the so-called âUnwilling vs. Unableâ paradigm. This paradigm compares subjectsâ reactions to intentional and unintentional human behaviour. All dogs received three conditions: In the unwilling-condition, an experimenter intentionally withheld a reward from them. In the two unable-conditions, she unintentionally withheld the reward, either because she was clumsy or because she was physically prevented from giving the reward to the dog. Dogs clearly distinguished in their spontaneous behaviour between unwilling- and unable-conditions. This indicates that dogs indeed distinguish intentional actions from unintentional behaviour. We critically discuss our findings with regard to dogsâ understanding of human intentional action.Results - Analysis of waiting - Other behavioural reactions Discussion Methods - Ethical statement - Subjects - Experimental setâup - Procedure - Codin
Entropies of algebraic Z d -actions and K-theory
Eine algebraische Z-d-Aktion ist eine kompakte abelsche Gruppe X, auf der die Gruppe Z d, d.h. das d-fache direkte Produkt der ganzen Zahlen, mittels stetigen Gruppenautomorphismen operiert. Die Entropie einer algebraischen Z-d-Aktion ist eine reelle Zahl, die man als MaĂ der Unordnung des Systems interpretieren kann. Gewissen Z-d-Aktionen kann man auch eine p-adische Zahl, die sogenannte p-adische Entropie, zuweisen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit definieren wir p-adische Entropie fĂŒr eine gröĂere Klasse von algebraischen Z-d-Aktionen. Dazu fĂŒhren wir die Eigenschaft der p-adischen ExpansitĂ€t ein. Dann benutzen wir algebraische K-Theorie sowie die p-adische Fuglede-Kadison-Determinante, um unsere allgemeinere Version der p-adischen Entropie zu gewinnen. Dieser Ansatz liefert auch fĂŒr die Theorie der expansiven Z-d-Aktionen neue Erkenntnisse, beispielsweise eine neue Invariante, die hier auf Ebene der K-Theorie beschrieben wird
Process for the modification of polymers, in particular polymer nanoparticles
The present invention relates to a highly efficient and ultra fast process for the photo-initiated preparation of polymers by polymerization using photoinitiators comprising a phosphorous oxide or -sulfide group and modification of said polymers. In particular the invention relates to an ultra fast process for the photo-initiated preparation of latices comprising polymer nanoparticles by heterophase polymerization using photoinitiators comprising a phosphorous oxide or -sulfide group and their modification. In another aspect, the invention relates to polymers and polymer nanoparticles obtainable by said process
Molecular traffic control in single-file networks with fast catalysts
As a model for molecular traffic control (MTC) we investigate the diffusion
of hard core particles in crossed single-file systems. We consider a square
lattice of single-files being connected to external reservoirs. The (vertical)
alpha-channels, carrying only A-particles, are connected to reservoirs with
constant density ra. B-particles move along the (horizontal) beta-channels,
which are connected to reservoirs of density rB. We allow the irreversible
transition A to B at intersections. We are interested in the stationary density
profile in the alpha- and beta- channels, which is the distribution of the
occupation probabilities over the lattice. We calculate the stationary currents
of the system and show that for sufficiently long channels the currents (as a
function of the reservoir densities) show in the limit of large transition
rates non analytic behavior. The results obtained by direct solution of the
master equation are verified by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 11 page
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