Anna Bálint

HUN-REN-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group

Sine-wave f0 fMRI Dog Human a b s t r a c t Voice-sensitivity in the auditory cortex of a range of mammals has been proposed to be determined primarily by tuning to conspecific auditory stimuli, but recent human findings indicate a role for a more general tuning to voicelikeness. Vocal emotional valence, a central characteristic of vocalisations, h...

Sleep research greatly benefits from comparative studies to understand the underlying physiological and environmental factors affecting the different features of sleep, also informing us about the possible evolutionary changes shaping them. Recently, the domestic dog became an exceedingly valuable model species in sleep studies, as the use of non-i...

Recent advances in the field of canine neuro-cognition allow for the non-invasive research of brain mechanisms in family dogs. Considering the striking similarities between dog's and human (infant)'s socio-cognition at the behavioural level, both similarities and differences in neural background can be of particular relevance. The current study inv...

The dog rhinarium (naked and often moist skin on the nose-tip) is prominent and richly innervated, suggesting a sensory function. Compared to nose-tips of herbivorous artio- and perissodactyla, carnivoran rhinaria are considerably colder. We hypothesized that this coldness makes the dog rhinarium particularly sensitive to radiating heat. We trained...

The sleeping activity of family dogs has been studied increasingly in the past years. Recently, a validated, non-invasive polysomnographic method has been developed for dogs, enabling the parallel recording of several neurophysiological signals on non-anesthetized family dogs, including brain activity (EEG), eye movements (EOG), cardiac (ECG), and...

Excessive aggression is a common behaviour problem in dogs that can have various destructive effects on the affected people and the implicated dog. Aggressive behaviour directed towards the owner or other family members is one of the most frequently occurring aggressive phenotypes. Here, we examine the reliability of a short questionnaire assessing...

Body size is an important feature that affects fighting ability; however, size-related parameters of ago-nistic vocalizations are difficult to manipulate because of anatomical constraints within the vocal production system. Rare examples of acoustic size modulation are due to specific features that enable the sender to steadily communicate exaggera...

Family dogs successfully follow human-given cues in a two-object choice test. However, whether this ability has any roots in dog–dog visual communication, has been seldom investigated. We designed a test where a video-projected, life-sized dog 'demonstrator' provided directional cues for the subjects by turning its head toward one of the two plates...

Family dogs successfully follow human-given cues in a two-object choice test. However, whether this ability has any roots in dog-dog visual communication, has been seldom investigated. We designed a test where a video-projected, life-sized dog 'demonstrator' provided directional cues for the subjects by turning its head toward one of the two plates...

Barking is perhaps the most characteristic form of vocalization in dogs; however, very little is known about its role in the intraspecific communication of this species. Besides the obvious need for ethological research, both in the field and in the laboratory, the possible information content of barks can also be explored by computerized acoustic...

Nonhuman animals often use specific signals to initiate playful interactions. There is evidence also for different forms of play-maintenance. Playful encounters include out-of-context and exaggerated behavioural sequences. Scientists have already collected knowledge about virtual size modification via acoustic signalling in particular animal specie...

Experiments that use human pointing gestures in two-way object choice tests are popular for studying visual communication and referential understanding but results may be influenced by involuntary cues from handlers or experimenters (i.e., ‘Clever Hans Effects’). In this paper we investigated whether such cues from a dog’s owner affected performanc...