scholarly journals A Preliminary Investigation of Interspecific Chemosensory Communication of Emotions: Can Humans (Homo sapiens) Recognise Fear- and Non-Fear Body Odour from Horses (Equus ferus caballus)

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3499
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Sabiniewicz ◽  
Michał Białek ◽  
Karolina Tarnowska ◽  
Robert Świątek ◽  
Małgorzata Dobrowolska ◽  
...  

Mammalian body odour conveys cues about an individual’s emotional state that can be recognised by conspecifics. Thus far, little attention has been paid to interspecific odour communication of emotions, and no studies have examined whether humans are able to recognise animal emotions from body odour. Thus, the aim of the present study was to address this question. Body odour samples were collected from 16 two-year-old thoroughbred horses in fear and non-fear situations, respectively. The horse odour samples were then assessed by 73 human odour raters. We found that humans, as a group, were able to correctly assign whether horse odour samples were collected under a fear- or a non-fear condition, respectively. Furthermore, they perceived the body odour of horses collected under the fear condition as more intense, compared with the non-fear condition. An open question remains, which is whether humans could simply distinguish between little versus much sweat and between high intensity versus low intensity or were able to recognise horses’ fear and non-fear emotions. These results appear to fit the notion that the ability to recognise emotions in other species may present an advantage to both the sender and the receiver of emotional cues, particularly in the interaction between humans and domesticated animals. To conclude, the present results indicate that olfaction might contribute to the human recognition of horse emotions. However, these results should be addressed with caution in light of the study’s limitations and only viewed as exploratory for future studies.

Author(s):  
Aleksandra Rakhmanova ◽  
Georgiy Loginov ◽  
Vladimir Dolich ◽  
Nataliya Komleva ◽  
Galina Rakhmanova

The relevance of the article is determined by the existence of contradictions between the need to introduce innovative technologies into the educational process at school, as an integral attribute of modern education, and the negative influence of factors on the physical and psycho-emotional state of health of students related to the use of information and communication tools (computers, phones, headphones). The goal of the study was to assess the relationship between the timing of the use of information and communication tools and the frequency of functional and psycho-emotional complaints in groups of middle and high school schoolchildren. 400 schoolchildren of the Saratov Region, the Moscow Region, Leningrad Region and the Republic of Dagestan were surveyed, who made up two groups of research: middle-school schoolchildren (grades 5–6) and high-school schoolchildren (grades 10–11 The survey was carried out by means of the standardized formalized cards which included the questions considering usage time of computers and mobile phones, complaints to a headache, hands pain, other pain and/or feeling of discomfort from visual organ and the organs of hearing, as well as a psycho-emotional state. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the STATISTICA application software program by StatSoft Inc (USA). To compare the frequencies of a binary feature, a fourfold table of absolute frequencies was constructed and the level of statistical significance for the exact Fisher’s two-tailed test criterion was determined. The study was conducted according to the requirements of bioethics, after signing informed consent statement by teenagers and their parents. The study examined the relationship between the timing of the use of information and communication tools and the frequency of complaints in groups of schoolchildren. The results of the study should be taken into account when developing and implementing preventive measures to prevent negative effects of computers and mobile devices on the body of students.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte M. Weiß ◽  
Andrea Marcillo ◽  
Marta Manser ◽  
Ruben Holland ◽  
Claudia Birkemeyer ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre Ruane

In 1997 the Internet was seen by many as a tool for radical reinterpretation of physicality and gender. Cybertheorists predicted we would leave our bodies behind and interact online as disembodied minds, and that the technology would reshape the way we saw ourselves. However, physicality has proved to be an inextricable part of all our interactions. Changing Internet technology has allowed Net users to find a myriad ways to perform and express their gender online. In this paper I consider attitudes to gender on the Net in 1997, when the main concerns were the imbalance between men and women online and whether it was possible or desirable to bring the body into online interactions. In much of the discourse surrounding gender online, a simple binary was assumed to exist. I go on to consider the extent to which those attitudes have changed today. Through my own experience of setting up a women’s community on Livejournal, and my observations of a men’s community set up in response, I conclude that though traditional attitudes to gender have largely translated to the Net and the binary is still the default view, some shifts have occurred. For example, between 1997 and today there seems to have been a fundamental change in perceptions of women’s attitudes to adversarial debate, and an increase in awareness of genders beyond the binary. In addition, experience and preliminary investigation lead me toward a hypothesis that today’s female-identified Net users are engaged in more conscious and active exploration and performance of their gender online than male-identified users are.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e1008484
Author(s):  
Ryan Smith ◽  
Rayus Kuplicki ◽  
Justin Feinstein ◽  
Katherine L. Forthman ◽  
Jennifer L. Stewart ◽  
...  

Recent neurocomputational theories have hypothesized that abnormalities in prior beliefs and/or the precision-weighting of afferent interoceptive signals may facilitate the transdiagnostic emergence of psychopathology. Specifically, it has been suggested that, in certain psychiatric disorders, interoceptive processing mechanisms either over-weight prior beliefs or under-weight signals from the viscera (or both), leading to a failure to accurately update beliefs about the body. However, this has not been directly tested empirically. To evaluate the potential roles of prior beliefs and interoceptive precision in this context, we fit a Bayesian computational model to behavior in a transdiagnostic patient sample during an interoceptive awareness (heartbeat tapping) task. Modelling revealed that, during an interoceptive perturbation condition (inspiratory breath-holding during heartbeat tapping), healthy individuals (N = 52) assigned greater precision to ascending cardiac signals than individuals with symptoms of anxiety (N = 15), depression (N = 69), co-morbid depression/anxiety (N = 153), substance use disorders (N = 131), and eating disorders (N = 14)–who failed to increase their precision estimates from resting levels. In contrast, we did not find strong evidence for differences in prior beliefs. These results provide the first empirical computational modeling evidence of a selective dysfunction in adaptive interoceptive processing in psychiatric conditions, and lay the groundwork for future studies examining how reduced interoceptive precision influences visceral regulation and interoceptively-guided decision-making.


Author(s):  
W.B.P.N. Herath ◽  
R.A.K.I. Ranasinghe ◽  
M.P.C. Sandaru ◽  
I.A.S. Lakmali ◽  
A.G.N.K. Aluthgama ◽  
...  

Addressing the emotional and mental health of the bedridden elderly is necessary as they are more likely to be depressed being isolated and dependent on a caregiver for a prolonged time. Several studies have been carried out to identify the mental stress of patients through their skin conductivity. The variations in the sympathetic nervous system reflect the emotional state of a person. This is demonstrated by the Galvanic Skin Response and thus can be used as a denotation of psychological or physiological arousal. Such arousal causes the blood capillary dilation, increment of sweat gland activities making the skin further conductive to electricity. In this study we develop a sensor module composed of a Galvanic Skin Response sensor for the bed ridden elderly and identify the relationship between body temperature, heart rate and GSR of them. The experiment is conducted upon 10 bed ridden elderly aged from 60 – 80 years of the Mihinthale region. The observations demonstrate a correlation between the heart rate, body temperature, skin conductivity and the human physiological states.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-567
Author(s):  
Volodymyr K. Likhachov ◽  
Yanina V. Shymanska ◽  
Yulia S. Savelieva ◽  
Viktoriya L. Vashchenko ◽  
Ludmyla М. Dobrovolska

Introduction: During pregnancy in the body of a healthy woman there are physiological and psychological changes that contribute to the bearing a child and prepare the female for future labour and motherhood. In women who experience failure at the stage of fertilization or during pregnancy, as a result of prolonged negative emotional states, psycho-emotional stress develops. The aim of the research was to study the psycho-emotional state of women with infertility in history, whose pregnancy resulted from extracorporal fertilization (IVF), and to develop methods for reducing their anxiety. Materials and methods: At the first stage, the initial psycho-emotional state of 60 women in the second trimester, whose pregnancy resulted from IVF (Group I), was studied; the control group consisted of 20 healthy women with a physiological course of pregnancy (Group II). At the second stage, 10 art therapy exercises with a requestioning of pregnant women from Group I were conducted for improving their psycho-emotional state. Results: Women of Group I had a high level of both situational anxiety (SA) and the personal one (PA). The prevalent type of the psychological component of gestational dominant was anxiety and euphoric types (58.3%). In one third of women with burdened gynecological history examined mild or masked depression was diagnosed. 43 pregnant women from Group I used a method of psychocorrection – art therapy, which included colouring “antistress” pictures of perinatal topic, making flowers from paper and creating a collage of dreams. Conclusions: After the art therapy course, a high level of SA (from 46.5% to 7.0%) and OA (from 48.8% to 32.6%) decreased, the index of the optimal type of the psychological component of gestational dominant increased from 25.6% to 53.5%. The number of women without depression increased from 62.8% to 93%.


2021 ◽  
pp. 113-118

Nesfatin-1is first described in 2006 as an anorectic peptide and regulate food intake. In following years, the studies demonstrated the presence of nesfatin-1 in central and various peripheral tissues. Thus, nesfatin-1 popularity increasing widely in clinical medicine, especially in cardiology, neurology, reproduction, metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, gastrointestinal system. Today, the main point concerning nesfatin-1 action in body organ and systems is concentrate its biological signals effects. Thus the increasing knowledge in these area will be highlighted for future studies especially in serious health problem all over the world population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1800) ◽  
pp. 20190268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Ferdenzi ◽  
Stéphane Richard Ortegón ◽  
Sylvain Delplanque ◽  
Nicolas Baldovini ◽  
Moustafa Bensafi

Many species use chemicals to communicate. In humans, there is increasing evidence that chemicals conveyed by the body are extremely important in interpersonal relationships. However, many aspects of chemical communication remain to be explored to fully understand this function in humans. The aim of this article is to identify relevant challenges in this field, with a focus on human attractiveness in the context of reproduction, and to put forward roadmaps for future studies that will hopefully extend to a wider range of social interactions. The first challenge consists in not being limited to body (mal)odours from the axilla. Preliminary data on how the odour of the face and head is perceived are presented. Second, there is a crucial need to increase our knowledge of the chemical bases of human chemical communication. Third, cross-cultural approaches must not be overlooked, because they have a major input in understanding the universal and culture-specific aspects of chemical communication. Fourth, the influence of specific cultural practices such as contraceptive and fragrance use is likely to be prominent and, therefore, needs to be well described. The fifth and last challenge for research projects in this field is the integration of different disciplines such as behavioural sciences, social sciences, neurosciences and microbiology. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Olfactory communication in humans’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 96 (12) ◽  
pp. 1317-1325 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Corbalán ◽  
N. Vicenzi ◽  
D.L. Moreno Azócar ◽  
S. Literas

The genus Phymaturus comprises lizards that inhabit cold environments at high altitudes or latitudes. Phymaturus verdugo Cei and Videla, 2003 is characterized by cephalic melanism, which is interpreted as a character present only in males and associated with sexual dimorphism. Using spectrophotometry and photography, we demonstrate that this species has high chromatic variability and that melanism is also present in females. By comparing colour variables on 15 patches of the body, we find significant differences between sexes in all patches, indicating strong sexual dichromatism for the entire body, not only the cephalic region. Body temperature had no effect on skin reflectance or melanism, which indicates that thermoregulation early in the day is not mediated by colour changes. Contrary to our predictions, we found no evidence of better body condition in darker individuals. Our study breaks some paradigms about the genus Phymaturus and suggests that human perception of colour, as well as working with small samples, can lead to misidentification or erroneous descriptions of species. We believe that future studies should explore heating rates and other functions of melanism such as crypsis, sexual selection, immune response, and UV protection to understand chromatic variability within this genus.


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