Across all species, communication implies that an emitter sends signals to a receiver, through one or more channels. Cats can integrate visual and auditory signals sent by humans and modulate their behaviour according to the valence of the emotion perceived. However, the specific patterns and channels governing cat-to-human communication are poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn contemporary western cultures, most humans talk to their pet companions. Speech register addressed to companion animals shares common features with speech addressed to young children, which are distinct from the typical adult-directed speech (ADS). The way dogs respond to dog-directed speech (DDS) has raised scientists' interest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn Western cultures, humans tend to use a specific kind of speech when talking to their pets, characterised, from an acoustical point of view, by elevated pitch and greater pitch modulation. Pet-directed speech (PDS), which has been mainly studied in dogs, shares some acoustic features with infant-directed speech (IDS), used when talking to young children. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that adult humans also modify characteristics of their voice when talking to a cat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile research on the benefits of animal-assisted interventions is beginning to build a significant body of work, studies on the well-being of therapy dogs are still in their infancy. Since handlers are the people responsible for their therapy dog's welfare, we interviewed 111 French handlers through an online questionnaire. Our results underlined that (i) therapy dogs' welfare is multidimensional when physical and psychological welfare, a balance between work and dog life and the settings and interactions of sessions are all taken into consideration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComplement Ther Clin Pract
August 2021
Background: Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI) are well implemented in human healthcare, in France as elsewhere; yet there are still difficulties in characterizing these practices and misconceptions about their mechanisms - little is known about the French practice of AAI and about the human-animal team.
Objectives: This study aims to characterize AAI by exploring their specificities through French handlers' perspectives.
Material And Method: An online survey addressed to French handlers working in AAI with mainly one dog was carried out.
Variation of female preferences is often reported in the literature and could be related to an artefact derived from multiple different methods used. Thus, there is a need to evaluate the influence of different methods when assessing female preferences. The present study aims to compare female preferences obtained from an operant conditioning test and from female vocal responses to male song in the domestic canary (Serinus canaria).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHumans speak to dogs using a special speech register called Pet-Directed Speech (PDS) which is very similar to Infant-Directed Speech (IDS) used by parents when talking to young infants. These two type of speech share prosodic features that are distinct from the typical Adult-Directed Speech (ADS): a high pitched voice and an increased pitch variation. So far, only one study has investigated the effect of PDS on dogs' attention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent studies focusing on the interspecific communicative interactions between humans and dogs show that owners use a special speech register when addressing their dog. This register, called pet-directed speech (PDS), has prosodic and syntactic features similar to that of infant-directed speech (IDS). While IDS prosody is known to vary according to the context of the communication with babies, we still know little about the way owners adjust acoustic and verbal PDS features according to the type of interaction with their dog.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBesides direct impacts of urban biodiversity on local ecosystem services, the contact of city dwellers with urban nature in their everyday life could increase their awareness on conservation issues. In this paper, we focused on a particularly common animal urban species, the feral pigeon Columba livia. Through an observational approach, we examined behavioral interactions between city dwellers and this species in the Paris metropolis, France.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMost studies on sexual selection focus on male characteristics such as male song in songbirds. Yet female vocalizations in songbirds are growing in interest among behavioural and evolutionary biologists because these vocalizations can reveal the female's preferences for male traits and may affect male display. This study was designed to test whether male song performance influences the different female signals in the domestic canary (Serinus canaria).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn canaries, specific phrases of male song (sexy songs, SS) that are difficult to produce are especially attractive for females. Females exposed to SS produce more copulation displays and deposit more testosterone into their eggs than females exposed to non-sexy songs (NS). Increased expression of the immediate early genes c-Fos or zenk (a.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMany animals live in a communication network, an environment where individuals can obtain information about competitors or potential mates by observing interactions between conspecifics. In such an environment, interactants might benefit by changing their signalling behaviour in the presence of an audience. This audience effect seems widespread among species, has been observed during various types of interaction (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConsidered as plague in many cities, pigeons in urban areas live close to human activities and exploit this proximity to find food which is often directly delivered by people. In this study, we explored the capacity of feral pigeons to take advantage of this human-based food resource and discriminate between friendly and hostile people. Our study was conducted in an urban park.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCarotenoids are pigments responsible for the red, orange and yellow coloration of plants and animals. They may be beneficial in two ways; they have a powerful antioxidant activity, and they can behave as an immunostimulant. Animals however cannot synthesize carotenoids de novo, they must obtain them through their diet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this study was: (i) to provide additional evidence regarding the existence of human voice parameters, which could be reliable indicators of a speaker's physical characteristics and (ii) to examine the ability of listeners to judge voice pleasantness and a speaker's characteristics from speech samples. We recorded 26 men enunciating five vowels. Voices were played to 102 female judges who were asked to assess vocal attractiveness and speakers' age, height and weight.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe challenge hypothesis predicts that plasma testosterone (T) concentration is high when male-male competitions are high and decreases when males are engaged in paternal care. In monogamous species, T concentration increases at the beginning of the breeding period and decreases after egg laying. According to the challenge hypothesis, increasing competition should also lead to T increase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe androgen concentration in birds' eggs varies with laying order, breeding conditions, and mate attractiveness. In passerine birds, mate attractiveness depends upon song quality. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of one criterion used by females to assess male song quality that is to say the presence of sexually attractive phrases on yolk androgen deposition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMale birdsong has a great influence in the stimulation of female reproduction. However, female physiological responsiveness to song may depend on the degree of complexity of male song. This is expected because females of iteroparous organisms may increase their fitness by matching their reproductive investment to the predicted value of each reproductive attempt.
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