Wide-eyed glare scares raptors: From laboratory evidence to applied management.

Raptors are one of the most important causes of fatalities due to their collisions with aircrafts as well as being the main victims of collisions with constructions. They are difficult to deter because they are not influenced by other airspace users or ground predators. Because vision is the primary sensory mode of many diurnal raptors, we evaluated the reactions of captive raptors to a "superstimulus" (a "paradoxical effect whereby animals show greater responsiveness to an exaggerated stimulus than to the natural stimulus") that combined an "eye shape" stimulus (as many species have an aversion for this type of stimulus) and a looming movement (LE).

Influence of early experience on processing 2D threatening pictures by European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).

Stimuli such as visual representations of raptors, snakes, or humans are generally assumed to be universally fear-inducing in birds and considered as a product of evolutionary perceptual bias. Both naïve and experienced birds should thus react to such stimuli with fear reactions. However, studies on different species have shown the importance of experience in the development of these fear reactions.

Simple Shapes Elicit Different Emotional Responses in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Neurotypical Children and Adults.

According to the literature, simple shapes induce emotional responses. Current evaluations suggest that humans consider angular shapes as "bad" and curvilinear forms as "good," but no behavioral data are available to support this hypothesis. Atypical development, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), could modify humans' perception of visual stimuli and thereby their emotional effect.

An odor timer in milk? Synchrony in the odor of milk effluvium and neonatal chemosensation in the mouse.

Mammalian newborns exhibit avid responsiveness to odor compounds emanating from conspecific milk. Milk is however developmentally heterogeneous in composition as a function of both evolved constraints and offspring demand. The present study aimed to verify whether milk odor attractivity for neonates is equally distributed along lactation in Mus musculus (Balb-c strain).

How does a newly born mouse get to the nipple? Odor substrates eliciting first nipple grasping and sucking responses.

It is a mammalian female strategy to emit odor cues and signals that direct their inexperienced newborns to the nipple, and optimize their initial sucking success and, hence, viability. Here, natural odorous substrates that contribute to nipple grasping were investigated in mice, a species that has not been much scrutinized on this topic. The response of pups toward the nipples of lactating females (LF) versus nonlactating females (NLF) were first assessed right after watched birth, before and after the first suckling experience, and at 1 day old, after more extended suckling experience.