Visual continuum in non-human animals: serial dependence revealed in dogs.

Serial dependence is a recently described phenomenon by which the perceptual evaluation of a stimulus is biased by a previously attended one. By integrating stimuli over time, serial dependence is believed to ensure a stable conscious experience. Despite increasing studies in humans, it is unknown if the process occurs also in other species.

Pictorial depth cues elicit the perception of tridimensionality in dogs.

The perception of tridimensionality is elicited by binocular disparity, motion parallax, and monocular or pictorial cues. The perception of tridimensionality arising from pictorial cues has been investigated in several non-human animal species. Although dogs can use and discriminate bidimensional images, to date there is no evidence of dogs' ability to perceive tridimensionality in pictures and/or through pictorial cues.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Problem-Based Learning in an International Undergraduate Program in Veterinary Sciences: Students' Satisfaction, Experience and Learning.

The systematic evaluation of the integration of problem-based learning (PBL) into educational programs in Italy is scarce and there are no published reports of its use in an Italian Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree program. This paper aims to assess the satisfaction of second-year students on an international Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree program after implementing two weeks of PBL with a multidisciplinary approach. Moreover, the impact of this methodological approach on the students' performance and their perceptions concerning their learning experience was investigated.

Determining Hearing Thresholds in Dogs Using the Staircase Method.

There is a growing interest in performing playback experiments to understand which acoustical cues trigger specific behavioral/emotional responses in dogs. However, very limited studies have focused their attention on more basic aspects of hearing such as sensitivity, i.e.

Yes, dogs are susceptible to the Kanizsa's triangle illusion: A reply to Pepperberg.

A recent paper by Pepperberg, Learning & Behavior, 51, 5-6, (2023) enquires about the validity of the finding that dogs are susceptible to the Kanizsa's triangle illusion, reported by Lõoke and coauthors (Lõoke et al., Animal Cognition, 25, 43-51, 2022). Here we elaborate on the matter, providing both theoretical considerations and further data, supporting the soundness of our previous conclusions.

Meowing dogs: can dogs recognize cats in a cross-modal violation of expectancy task (Canis familiaris)?

Dogs can recognize conspecifics in cross-modal audio-video presentations. In this paper, we aimed at exploring if such capability extends to the recognition of cats, and whether it is influenced by exposure to these animals. To reach our aim, we enrolled 64 pet dogs.

Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ): Validation of the Italian Translation.

The aim of this study is to develop an Italian translation of the 100-item Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) version and to validate its psychometric properties, in order to facilitate systematic, large-scale studies on dog behavior for Italian-speaking dog owners. A total number of 803 responses by dog owners were collected online. Using the Principal Axis Method and Common Factor Analysis with Quartimin oblique rotation ( < 0.

The Cat-Owner Relationship: Validation of the Italian C/DORS for Cat Owners and Correlation with the LAPS.

Globally, most people now own a pet. Scales have been developed to understand the impact of pet ownership on people's lives and to measure specific aspects of the owner-pet relationship. The Cat-/Dog-Owner Relationship Scale (C/DORS) is a tool developed to investigate this relationship in both dog and cat owners.

Sound Localization Ability in Dogs.

The minimum audible angle (MAA), defined as the smallest detectable difference between the azimuths of two identical sources of sound, is a standard measure of spatial auditory acuity in animals. Few studies have explored the MAA of dogs, using methods that do not allow potential improvement throughout the assessment, and with a very small number of dog(s) assessed. To overcome these limits, we adopted a staircase method on 10 dogs, using a two-forced choice procedure with two sound sources, testing angles of separation from 60° to 1°.

Dogs' ability to follow temporarily invisible moving objects: the ability to track and expect is shaped by experience.

Visually tracking a moving object, even if it becomes temporarily invisible, is an important skill for animals living in complex environments. However, this ability has not been widely explored in dogs. To address this gap of knowledge and understand how experience contributes to such ability, we conducted two experiments using a violation of expectation paradigm.

Disseminating Science and Education through Social Media: The Experience of a Students' Editorial Team at the University of Padova.

"WeSocial: Online Learning Community" is a project aiming to provide students with the basic skills in science communication via social media as a useful tool in their future careers and to disseminate the University Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science activities to the general public. The project is based on two main actions: professional training on science communication and social media strategies, and the establishment of an editorial team composed of students supervised by the teaching staff. When the training phase was concluded, official department accounts on Instagram (bca_campus_unipd) and Facebook (BCA_campus_unipd) were opened.

Dogs (canis familiaris) underestimate the quantity of connected items: first demonstration of susceptibility to the connectedness illusion in non-human animals.

In humans, numerical estimation is affected by perceptual biases, such as those originating from the spatial arrangement of elements. Different animal species can also make relative quantity judgements. This includes dogs, who have been proposed as a good model for comparative neuroscience.

Is this love? Sex differences in dog-owner attachment behavior suggest similarities with adult human bonds.

Sex differences in the behavioral responses of Labrador Retriever dogs in the Strange Situation Test were explored. Behaviors expressed by dogs during seven 3-min episodes were analyzed through a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The scores of factors obtained were analyzed with a Generalized Linear Mixed Model to reveal the effects of the dog's sex and age and the owner's sex.

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are susceptible to the Kanizsa's triangle illusion.

The ability to complete partially missing contours is widespread across the animal kingdom, but whether this extends to dogs is still unknown. To address this gap in knowledge, we assessed dogs' susceptibility to one of the most common contour illusions, the Kanizsa's triangle. Six dogs were trained to discriminate a triangle from other geometrical figures using a two-alternative conditioned discrimination task.

Dogs fail to recognize a human pointing gesture in two-dimensional depictions of motion cues.

Few studies have investigated biological motion perception in dogs and it remains unknown whether dogs recognise the biological identity of two-dimensional animations of human motion cues. To test this, we assessed the dogs' (N = 32) responses to point-light displays of a human performing a pointing gesture towards one of two pots. At the start of the experiment the demonstrator was a real-life person, but over the course of the test dogs were presented with two-dimensional figurative representations of pointing gestures in which visual information was progressively removed until only the isolated motion cues remained.

I know a dog when I see one: dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize dogs from videos.

Several aspects of dogs' visual and social cognition have been explored using bi-dimensional representations of other dogs. It remains unclear, however, if dogs do recognize as dogs the stimuli depicted in such representations, especially with regard to videos. To test this, 32 pet dogs took part in a cross-modal violation of expectancy experiment, during which dogs were shown videos of either a dog and that of an unfamiliar animal, paired with either the sound of a dog barking or of an unfamiliar vocalization.

Do Domestic Dogs () Perceive Numerosity Illusions?

Recent studies have showed that domestic dogs are only scantly susceptible to visual illusions, suggesting that the perceptual mechanisms might be different in humans and dogs. However, to date, none of these studies have utilized illusions that are linked to quantity discrimination. In the current study, we tested whether dogs are susceptible to a linear version of the Solitaire illusion, a robust numerosity illusion experienced by most humans.

Do Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and Its Sulfate (DHEAS) Play a Role in the Stress Response in Domestic Animals?

In animal husbandry, stress is often associated with poor health and welfare. Stress occurs when a physiological control system detects a state of real or presumptive threat to the animal's homeostasis or a failure to control a fitness-critical variable. The definition of stress has mostly relied on glucocorticoids measurement, even though glucocorticoids represent one stress-response system, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, which is not precise enough as it is also related to metabolic regulation and activated in non-stressful situations (pleasure, excitement, and arousal).

A Short Period of Darkness after Mixing of Growing Pigs Intended for PDO Hams Production Reduces Skin Lesions.

Agonistic behavior after the regrouping of unfamiliar pigs has been recognized as one of the major welfare issues for pig husbandry, as it may result in lesions, lameness, and health problems. One scarcely investigated strategy to curb agonistic behavior is reducing the availability of visual stimuli potentially eliciting aggressions. In this study, we investigated the expression of agonistic behavior by growing pigs and the resulting accumulation of skin lesions over a period of 14 days following the formation of new social groups, which occurred in a condition of darkness maintained for 48 h.

Dogs (Canis familiaris) recognise our faces in photographs: implications for existing and future research.

Dogs are an ideal species to investigate phylogenetic and ontogenetic factors contributing to face recognition. Previous research has found that dogs can recognise their owner using visual information about the person's face, presented live. However, a thorough investigation of face processing mechanisms requires the use of graphical representations and it currently remains unclear whether dogs are able to spontaneously recognise human faces in photographs.

Local Dot Motion, Not Global Configuration, Determines Dogs' Preference for Point-Light Displays.

Visual perception remains an understudied area of dog cognition, particularly the perception of biological motion where the small amount of previous research has created an unclear impression regarding dogs' visual preference towards different types of point-light displays. To date, no thorough investigation has been conducted regarding which aspects of the motion contained in point-light displays attract dogs. To test this, pet dogs ( = 48) were presented with pairs of point-light displays with systematic manipulation of motion features (i.

Development of a Spatial Discount Task to Measure Impulsive Choices in Dogs.

Impulsive choices reflect an individual's tendency to prefer a smaller immediate reward over a larger delayed one. Here, we have developed a behavioural test which can be easily applied to assess impulsive choices in dogs. Dogs were trained to associate one of two equidistant locations with a larger food amount when a smaller amount was presented in the other location, then the smaller amount was placed systematically closer to the dog.

The behaviour of overweight dogs shows similarity with personality traits of overweight humans.

Excessive food intake and the resulting excess weight gain is a growing problem in human and canine populations. Dogs, due to their shared living environment with humans, may provide a beneficial model to study the causes and consequences of obesity. Here, we make use of two well-established research paradigms (two-way choice paradigm and cognitive bias test), previously applied with dogs, to investigate the role of obesity and obesity-prone breeds for food responsiveness.

Spotlight on Assistance Dogs-Legislation, Welfare and Research.

Assistance dogs are a very diverse group of working dogs that are trained to assist humans with different types of disabilities in their daily lives. Despite these dogs' value for humankind, research on their welfare status, cognitive and behavioural capacities, selection criteria for the best fitting individuals, effective training and management practices, and genetic issues are so far lacking. This review highlights the need to address these topics and to promote progress in legal issues around assistance dogs.