Adam Miklosi

..A more experiment-oriented approach is required for the study of dog vocalisation that could shed light on the possible communicative function of these acoustic signals...

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..We suggest that a more systematic comparative research is needed to understand the emerging communicative representational abilities in animals that provide the background for comprehending the human pointing gesture...

..The results suggest that individual familiarization with pointing gestures ensures high-level performance in the presence of such gestures; however, species-specific differences could cause differences in signaling toward the human...

..We assume that the high variability in the wolves' communicative behaviour might have provided a basis for selection during the course of domestication of the dog...

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..To reconcile previously contradicting views on the origin of dogs' outstanding performance in utilizing human gestures, we suggest that dog-wolf differences should be studied in a more complex way...

..Such object-hiding and search tasks provide a typical case for how susceptibility to human social signals could (mis)lead domestic dogs...

..Our results are in accordance with those of recent studies, which show that behaviors associated with control, authority or aggression increase cortisol concentrations, while play and affiliative behavior decrease cortisol levels...

..It is very likely that this result can be generalized to other mammalian species--that is, no visual experience of another individual is needed for recognizing some of the most important motivational states of the caller...

..These findings suggest that dog barks have context-specific and individual-specific acoustic features. In our opinion, this machine learning method may provide an efficient tool for analyzing acoustic data in various behavioral studies...

..These findings suggest that dog bark may carry context- and individual-specific information for the conspecifics...

..Showing the ability of recognizing human attention across different situations dogs proved to be more flexible than chimpanzees investigated in similar circumstances...

..007; AIBS: p = 0.023). The results have some potential to support human studies; however, further research should reveal the molecular function of the TH gene variants, and look for the effect in more breeds...

..This suggests that in dogs the outcome of a demonstration plays only a restricted role in the manifestation of social learning...

..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...

..The dogs' ability to understand the communicatory nature of the situations is discussed in terms of their social cognitive skills and unique evolutionary history...

..The experiments provide evidence that in adult dogs, communicative context with humans is needed for effective interspecific social learning to take place...

..In Study 3, we have found that dogs are able to localise the hidden object by utilising indirect human signals, and they are able to convey this information to their owner...

..No such preference was found with any of the control stimuli, suggesting that dogs have a mental representation of the caller when hearing its vocalization...

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..These observations suggest that the dogs' social anticipation ability contributes to behavioural synchronisation and cooperative processes between dog and owner...

..This finding reveals an intricate organization of the social structure in multi-dog households, which can contribute to individual differences existing among dogs...

..It is rendered probable that the bark might be a more efficient communication system between humans and dogs for communicating the motivational state of an animal than for discrimination among strange individuals...

..Humans' ability to recognize meaning suggests that barks could serve as an effective means of communication between dog and human...

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..This suggests that dogs might acquire abilities by observation that enhance their success in complex socio-behavioural situations...

..However, note that the characteristics of dogs in the present study were reported by the owners, and the associations with the traits do not necessarily represent a causal relationship...

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..In addition, we have revealed a third group of animals which show ambivalent behavior in a social threatening situation...

..Preliminary findings are presented that polymorphisms of the DRD4, DBH, and DAT genes can be associated with attention deficit among Belgian Tervuerens...

..Finally, we propose a synergetic model to account for both genetic and environmental effects on interspecific social behaviour in dogs and wolves...

..We suggest that human-animal interaction provides a rich source of knowledge for designing social robots that are able to interact with humans under a wide range of conditions...

..abstract:..