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Do you believe in dog? 2016

Showing posts with label citizen science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label citizen science. Show all posts

28 November 2016

Do Dogs Synchronize Their Behavior with People? Researcher Seeks Participation in Online Study

Do Dogs Synchronize Their Behavior with People? Researcher Seeks Participation in Online Study


Please welcome today's guest contributor, Charlotte Duranton, a PhD student at the University Aix-Marseille – Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology. For this online study, Charlotte is seeking participants who own dogs as well as those who do not. Please share the study far and wide!

Our dogs are not only our best friends, they are even our shadows. When you are tired and just want to hang out at home, many dogs will lay down and sleep at your feet. And when you are full of energy and ready to go out, your companion dog is ready to go, waiting to get out, and full of enthusiasm. In both, the dog is a reflection of your own state.

While these behaviors are typically accepted by the general public, they lack extensive scientific study. This is the topic I am investigating for my PhD project: Do dogs display behavioral synchronization with their humans?

Non-conscious synchronized behaviors are found in various species and among all taxa of live beings. Synchronization is observed within intraspecific groups and dyads and has various adaptive values. Being synchronized with others helps: i. decrease the pressure of predation on offspring, ii. increase the effectiveness of anti-predation strategies, and iii. increase social cohesion (see Duranton & Gaunet 2016 for a review). 

This last point is essential when thinking about dog-human groups and dyads. In humans, synchronization helps foster relationships and social bonds between individuals. The more affiliated individuals are, the more behaviorally synchronized they will be (Duranton & Gaunet, 2016).

When considering the dog-human relationship, we know that dogs are very sensitive to our body movements, and such a sensitivity is proposed to be the basis for behavioral synchronization between dogs and humans (Duranton & Gaunet, 2015). 


Social referencing is a type of behavioral synchronization that has recently been identified between dogs and their owners. When confronted with an unfamiliar stimulus, dogs looked at their owners to see their reactions, and then the dogs reacted accordingly. Dogs used their owner’s reaction as a guide when reacting to an unknown object (Merola et al., 2012) and an unknown person (Duranton et al., 2016). Movement alone was sufficient for the dogs to synchronize with the human’s reaction (Duranton et al., 2016).

 The scientific question...
We now want to investigate the existence of behavioral synchrony from the dog towards the human when they are alone together without any external stimuli. Do dogs, in a quiet place, with no external events or stimuli, synchronize their behavior with the behavior of their owners?

Get involved!
Help us investigate this question by participating in our online citizen project: www.dog2human-synchrony.fr

Study participants will watch a few short videos and report back on what you observe. The study takes approximately 10-15 minutes.

Study participants
We seek participants who own dogs as well as those who do not own dogs, so please share the study widely!

French or English, your pick!
The study is available in both French and English! 
Access the study here: www.dog2human-synchrony.fr

Please don't hesitate to contact me should you have any questions: charlotte.duranton@cegetel.net

Thank you for considering contributing to this study!


Charlotte Duranton,
www.charlotteduranton.com
University Aix-Marseille – Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology – CNRS
Association AVA

References
Duranton & Gaunet, 2015. Canis sensitivus: Affiliation and dogs' sensitivity to others' behavior as the basis for synchronization with humans? Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 10, 513—524.

Duranton & Gaunet. 2016. Behavioural synchronization from an ethological perspective: overview of its adaptive value. International Society for Adaptive Behavior.

Duranton, Bedossa, & Gaunet. 2016. When facing an unfamiliar person, pet dogs present social referencing based on their owners' direction of movement alone. Animal Behaviour, 113, 147—156.

Merola et al. 2012. Social referencing in dog-owner dyads? Animal Cognition, 15, 175–185.
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22 November 2013

Poo Power! Global Challenge

Poo Power! Global Challenge

Hey Julie,
it's not every week I get to issue an invitation to the entire world, but that's exactly what I'm doing today!

 Mia
Students invited to compete in global dog poo competition:

Poo Power! Global Challenge launches Monday 25 November 2013

Students and classes will be pitched against each other to see who can identify the most and largest dog waste 'hotspots' in their local neighbourhood in the 'Poo Power! Global Challenge'. Participants use a GPS-enabled iPhone to download the free Poo Power! App from the App Store. Their task is to identify and map dog poo 'hotspots' in dog parks and public spaces from their neighbourhood from Monday 25 November 2013. 

 While the initial competition is being run for students and schools, anyone, anywhere can participate and contribute to this citizen science initiative.
Duncan & Diesel from Poo Power!
This eyebrow-raising project is a collaboration between dog poo entrepreneur Duncan Chew from Poo Power! and me (!), as a way to say thanks to all the students who voted for me to win I'm a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here! in Australia recently. The collected information will be uploaded onto the Global Poo Map and provides a platform for students to discuss the scientific, social and environmental issues of dog waste. The students are then encouraged to write a letter to their local Government representative of their findings and recommendations. Citizen science at it's finest! 

Scientific American are currently featuring Poo Power! on their Citizen Science website

"From our research only 3% of Australians see uncollected dog waste as an environmental concern," explains Duncan Chew. "When it rains, uncollected dog poo gets washed down drains, effecting water quality and habitat for native animals, as well as making rivers and creeks unpleasant for us to visit."  

I just think this is a great way to utilise the prize money from winning the I’m A Scientist – Get Me Out of Here! competition; it raises awareness of new sustainable energy sources, environmental issues and responsible dog ownership, all while increasing student engagement in a citizen science activity.
The collated information has the poo-tential to identify sites for biogas-powered lights for parks as proposed by the Melbourne-basedproject, Poo Power!, currently in development. The methane that is released from the dog waste as it breaks down inside a 'biogas generator' can be used as a viable renewable energy source.
Photo: Steven Pam

Competition prizes and giveaways are up for grabs for students whose submissions are received between 25th November and 9th December 2013. After this initial competition period closes, the project will continue to run, collecting ongoing hotspot data worldwide.
Check out everything you need to know at www.poopower.com.au
Download the full instructions to participate here

To contextualise the material for classroom lessons, teachers can download the Poo Power! Study Guide

Competition details

Individual student prizes include 2 iPod Shuffles (for the two students who log the most hotspots) and 4 Doggie Doo games (random giveaways to people mapping hotspots) during the two week competition period.
For each competing class, teachers will receive a copy of the 'Dog Poo - The Truth At Last' on DVD. For contextualising the material for classroom lessons teachers are encouraged to download the Study Guide from the Poo Power! Resources page.
Download the full instructions to participate here
Further reading:

 Okoroigwe E.C., Ibeto C.N. & Okpara C.G. (2010). Comparative Study of the Potential of Dog Waste for Biogas Production, Trends in Applied Sciences Research, 5 (1) 71-77. DOI:  

 Nemiroff L. (2007). Design, Testing and Implementation of a Large-Scale Urban Dog Waste Composting Program, Compost Science & Utilization, 15 (4) 237-242. Link: click here to view PDF

 © Mia Cobb | Do You Believe in Dog? 2013
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14 December 2012

Play with your dog, for science

Play with your dog, for science

Project: Play With Your Dog (our latest study)

 Hi Mia,

Wow. Very heavy stuff. I’m really happy you put this all out there. It's a great resource, especially when people tend to think, "That won't happen to me." An uncomfortable and upsetting situation hopefully becomes more real and understandable. Hopefully, an eye of caution will be extended to those circumstances more often associated with bites. 

 Show us how you play
You’re right, my mind has been 100% on things not related to dog bites. At the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab, we just launched our next project. It’s called, Project: Play with Your Dog. 

 We are cataloguing all the ways—traditional, original, or creative—people play with their dogs. To do this, we are using the Citizen Science platform and asking dog owners to submit short videos of themselves playing with their dog. It's really just a happy study.
Our Project on Scientific American Citizen Science

This week, we launched with a guest blog post on Scientific American, How do you play with your dog? and the project is now on their Citizen Science page.

 Now we need hundreds of videos of people playing with their dogs!  


How people can participate: 
Find or make a 30-60 second video of you and your dog playing in whatever way you like to play together, and then upload the video to our website and complete a short survey. 

 REALLY IMPORTANT: Both dog and person should be visible for all or most of the video. As cute as it is to see your dog running back and forth, we need to see you in the video playing with your dog. SUGGESTIONS: Attach the video camera to a tripod to capture the play area, or have another person hold the video camera.

 Then, everyone is invited to add a picture to our Wall of Contributors (which is growing and the pictures are really awesome!)

 Project: Play with Your Dog is open to anyone, in any country. If you live with a dog, we want to see you play.

Source: Business Insider Science
Additional details:
Subjects: Participants must be at least 8 years old 
Time Commitment: 20 to 30 minutes
Project Duration: Ongoing through Spring 2013
Project Website: www.DogHumanPlay.com 
Contact: DogCognitionStudy@gmail.com

 That's what's going on in my world. Look forward to seeing a video of Elke in the river and you with stick in hand ;)

 Happy holidays on the horizon!!!

 Julie  

© Julie Hecht 2012  
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Scientific American

18 October 2012

You are Science. Citizen Science.

You are Science. Citizen Science.

What a big eye you have! Oh, you're doing science!
Mia!

 You are 1,000% right. Your rightness is statistically significant. Citizen Science is awesome.
To keep with the awesomeness of Citizen Science, here are a few more Citizen Science websites and projects.

 Citizen Science Aggregators

Citizen Science on Scientific American
  • "Scientists collaborating across continents. Now, using the power of the Internet, non-specialists are participating, too."
  • “In a nutshell... This is the place to find out about, take part in, and contribute to science through recreational activities and research projects.” They have an enormous listing of different projects you can join. Through scistarter, you pick an activity, pick a topic and BLAMMO, it shoots out projects that interest you and that you could help with. (you must sign up on scistarter, but that's easy peasy).

Some of my favorite projects

  • (I partially, fine, mostly, like it's acronym) NASA scientists are interested in learning how clouds affect our atmosphere, particularly because clouds play a role in affecting Earth's overall temperature and energy balance. 

  • Hysterical, espeically when they slow down the babies laughing and they sound exactly like old men. Or maybe walruses? Or maybe someone choking. You tell me. My favorite is "Hysterical Bubbles", although that dog gets kinda close to that baby during his/her bubble enjoyment. "Baby laughing at Wii" is pretty good, too.

  • Kind of fabulous. This is their description: "An OTTER SPOTTER is YOU, a citizen scientist who observes river otters in your  neighborhood stream, river, bay/county state or national park/ and elsewhere and submits your information to this ecology project... As of September 2012: +150 observations submitted from across the Bay Area, keep them coming in!"

  • Talking about citizen science reminds me of a project called, I am Science which was on kickstarter and reached its goal. From the website: "I AM SCIENCE brings you the personal stories of the individuals who went off the beaten path toward their careers in science. “I am Science” describes the stories behind the people who ended up in science careers. Whether as science writers, academic scientists, pharmaceutical technicians or all of the above there is one thing I have learned: the straight and narrow path is rarely the case."
I just got to Cincinnati for APDT 2012 and will be talking about that Physical Prompts to Anthropomorphism study tomorrow. 

Will try and tweet/Facebook on the conference's content!!


 Nighty Night!

Julie

Referenced
Bekoff, M. Dogs: Looking At the Way We Look At Our Best Friends. Psychology Today. August 21, 2012


© Julie Hecht 2012
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14 October 2012

Citizen science and digital platforms: folding it all the way to outer space

Citizen science and digital platforms: folding it all the way to outer space

(source)
Hello Julie!

I hope you are having a fun weekend. 

I’m still on a mind-whirling high from attending the ScienceRewired launch event on Thursday last week. ScienceRewired is a philanthropic initiative that aims to promote public engagement in science through digital and social technologies. 

Their mission is to aid non-technical science practitioners and the digital domain in working together, to look at science from new perspectives while helping educate and empower individuals to create significant positive change in the world. Their focus spreads across science education, science communication and citizen science initiatives – what’s not to love about that?!

(source)
I was fortunate to be awarded a scholarship to attend the day in Adelaide (730km / 450 miles away from home) by the Australian Science Communicators. The event was themed ‘Connect, Collaborate and Communicate for Change’ and intended to bring together science communicators, academics, media professionals and digital visionaries for a one day conference of debate, insight and education as a springboard for ongoing communication and action. We heard from a wide range of wonderful speakers about different digital/social media initiatives (most session content has been reported here), but what I wanted to share with you today were two really exciting and different projects that are underway using citizen science.
(source)
(source)
What is Citizen Science anyway?

Citizen science has been gaining momentum since the mid-1990’s, but just in case you haven’t heard the term before, relax. 

You already know what it is even if you haven’t heard the label. 

 Simply put, it’s when amateur scientists or non-professionally-scientific people (i.e. general public) collaborate and help contribute to science. The internet has made this super easy.


(source)
theSkyNet

 The "human spokesperson for theSkyNet", Kirsten Gottschalk, gave an engaging talk about the 'passive' (means you don't have to really do much at all to contribute to science = win for lazy people who still care) cit-sci project being used to process astronomical (literally!) amounts of data to understand our Universe and make awesome new discoveries.

 This is done by participating citizens clicking a link that enables their computer to process small packets of data that provide small pieces of the huge puzzle that is the work of radio astronomers. 

 In their first 24 hours, they had over 3,000 registered contributors! 

 It's so cool. 
Watch the video to learn more!
(source)
(source)
fold.it

David Baker (source)

We also heard from David Baker who Skyped in from his office at the University of Washington. His enthusiasm for the foldit project was infectious and he had everyone in the audience marvelling at this clever project that has engaged gamers and other interested members of the public to help solve major molecular protein design problems related to human diseases and their cures.

 The contributions generated through people playing this game have contributed to developments in the field and (this is my favourite bit!) has even resulted in foldit players being credited as authors on a published scientific manuscript. Not individually, no. But as Foldit Players aka Players, F. I love that!

Now my mind is spinning about how all this exciting new knowledge and improved understand of the role and forms that citizen science can play in research.  So what does this post have to do about canine science? Well, maybe not much. 
Yet. 
Hope to hear from you soon,

 Mia
(source)


Further reading:

 Hand, E. (2010). Citizen science: People power, Nature, 466 (7307) 687. DOI: 10.1038/466685a

Khatib, F., Cooper, S., Tyka, M.D., Xu, K., Makedon, I., Popovic, Z., Baker, D. & Players, F. (2011). From the Cover: Algorithm discovery by protein folding game players, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (47) 18953. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1115898108

Wiggins, A. & Crowston, K. (2011). From Conservation to Crowdsourcing: A Typology of Citizen Science, System Sciences, 10. DOI: 10.1109/HICSS.2011.207 

 Parsons, J., Lukyanenko, R. & Wiersma, Y. (2011). Easier citizen science is better, Nature, 471 (7336) 37. DOI: 10.1038/471037a 

Citizen science @ Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/citizen-science/

p.s. we cracked 1,000 likers on our facebook page - I LIKE THAT!
(source)
© Mia Cobb 2012
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