DOG – IMAGE PAREMIAS IN TRANSLATION (BASED ON NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV’S MEMOIRS)

Animalistic metaphors are widely used in political discourse. The paper deals with the comparative analysis of Russian paremias with the constituent element “dog” employed in Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs and their English translations. The etymology and cultural connotations of the phraseological units are explored as well. The corpus linguistics methodology is used to identify the expressions containing the word “dog.” By applying Conceptual Metaphor Theory and frame semantics, the mappings that serve to recreate the author’s view of “dog” cognition and communication for the reader are investigated. The research contributes to the study of phraseology and translation as it provides an insight into challenges caused by linguistic and cultural differences while transferring metaphorical expressions from one language and culture to another.

The scholar’s best friend: research trends in dog cognitive and behavioral studies

In recent decades, cognitive and behavioral knowledge in dogs seems to have developed considerably, as deduced from the published peer-reviewed articles. However, to date, the worldwide trend of scientific research on dog cognition and behavior has never been explored using a bibliometric approach, while the evaluation of scientific research has increasingly become important in recent years. In this review, we compared the publication trend of the articles in the last 34 years on dogs’ cognitive and behavioral science with those in the general category “Behavioral Science”. We found that, after 2005, there has been a sharp increase in scientific publications on dogs. Therefore, the year 2005 has been used as “starting point” to perform an in-depth bibliometric analysis of the scientific activity in dog cognitive and behavioral studies. The period between 2006 and 2018 is taken as the study period, and a backward analysis was also carried out. The data analysis was performed using “bibliometrix”, a new R-tool used for comprehensive science mapping analysis. We analyzed all information related to sources, countries, affiliations, co-occurrence network, thematic maps, collaboration network, and world map. The results scientifically support the common perception that dogs are attracting the interest of scholars much more now than before and more than the general trend in cognitive and behavioral studies. Both, the changes in research themes and new research themes, contributed to the increase in the scientific production on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of dogs. Our investigation may benefit the researchers interested in the field of cognitive and behavioral science in dogs, thus favoring future research work and promoting interdisciplinary collaborations.

Breed Differences in Dog Cognition Associated with Brain-Expressed Genes and Neurological Functions

Synopsis Given their remarkable phenotypic diversity, dogs present a unique opportunity for investigating the genetic bases of cognitive and behavioral traits. Our previous work demonstrated that genetic relatedness among breeds accounts for a substantial portion of variation in dog cognition. Here, we investigated the genetic architecture of breed differences in cognition, seeking to identify genes that contribute to variation in cognitive phenotypes. To do so, we combined cognitive data from the citizen science project Dognition.com with published breed-average genetic polymorphism data, resulting in a dataset of 1654 individuals with cognitive phenotypes representing 49 breeds. We conducted a breed-average genome-wide association study to identify specific polymorphisms associated with breed differences in inhibitory control, communication, memory, and physical reasoning. We found five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that reached genome-wide significance after Bonferroni correction, located in EML1, OR52E2, HS3ST5, a U6 spliceosomal RNA, and a long noncoding RNA. When we combined results across multiple SNPs within the same gene, we identified 188 genes implicated in breed differences in cognition. This gene set included more genes than expected by chance that were (1) differentially expressed in brain tissue and (2) involved in nervous system functions including peripheral nervous system development, Wnt signaling, presynapse assembly, and synaptic vesicle exocytosis. These results advance our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of complex cognitive phenotypes and identify specific genetic variants for further research.

Discrimination of Person Odor by Owned Domestic Dogs

In the field of dog cognition research, many studies assume that their subjects have multimodal recognition of their owner: Experiments using the face or voice of the person have proliferated. An outstanding question is whether owned domestic dogs represent the people with whom they live via smell. Olfaction is a principle sensory modality for dogs, and there is evidence that it is integral to recognition of conspecifics. In the current study, we investigated whether owned dogs spontaneously (without training) distinguished their owner's odor from a stranger's odor. Using natural body odor captured on a t-shirt, we found that dogs habituated to a familiar odor and dishabituated to an unfamiliar odor. This finding begins to answer the question of how dogs recognize and represent humans, including their owners.

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 (N = 48) were presented with pairs of point-light displays with systematic manipulation of motion features (i.e., upright or inverted orientation, coherent or scrambled configuration, human or dog species). Results revealed a significant effect of inversion, with dogs directing significantly longer looking time towards upright than inverted dog point-light displays; no effect was found for scrambling or the scrambling-inversion interaction. No looking time bias was found when dogs were presented with human point-light displays, regardless of their orientation or configuration. The results of the current study imply that dogs’ visual preference is driven by the motion of individual dots in accordance with gravity, rather than the point-light display’s global arrangement, regardless their long exposure to human motion.

Free-ranging dogs are capable of comprehending complex human pointing cues

Dogs are the most common species to be found as pets and have been subjects of human curiosity leading to extensive research on their socialization with humans. One of the dominant themes in dog cognition pertains to their capacity of understanding and responding to human referential gestures. The remarkable socio-cognitive skills of pet dogs, while interacting with humans, is quite well established. However, studies regarding the free-ranging subpopulations are greatly lacking. Free-ranging dogs represent an ideal system to investigate interspecific communication with unfamiliar humans, nullifying any contribution of indirect conditioning. The interactions of these dogs with humans are quite complex and multidimensional. For the first time, we tested free-ranging dogs’ ability to understand relatively complex human referential gestures using dynamic and momentary distal pointing cues. We found that these dogs are capable of apprehending distal pointing cues from humans. However, approximately half of the population tested showed a lack of tendency to participate even after successful familiarization with the experimental set-up. A closer inspection revealed anxious behavioural states of the individuals were responsible for such an outcome. We assume that life experiences with humans probably shape personalities of free-ranging dogs, which in turn influence their responsiveness to human communicative gestures.

Oxytocin blocks pet dog (Canis familiaris) object choice task performance being predicted by owner-perceived intelligence and owner attachment.

<p>A positive association has been found between owner-rated dog cognition and owner-perceived closeness to their dog, using the Perceptions of Dog Intelligence and Cognitive Skills (PoDIaCS) survey and the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS). Oxytocin has been positively associated with bonding in mammals and with non-verbal intelligence in humans and could therefore explain this relationship between owner-rated questionnaires. The aims of this study were to ascertain: i) whether a pet dog’s performance on an object choice task (OCT), which objectively measures dogs’ ability to use human non-verbal, social gestures to find a food reward, could be predicted by their owners’ scores on three different surveys: (a) the MDORS, (b) the Pet Attachment Questionnaire (PAQ), which measures levels of anxious and avoidant attachment styles, and (c) a modified version of the PoDIaCS, and ii) if intranasal administration of oxytocin to dogs, known to enhance dogs’ performance on such tasks, would disable the ability of an owner to predict their dogs’ performance. It was hypothesized that higher ratings of owner-reported closeness to their dog, and higher ratings of owner-perceived intelligence of their dog, would positively predict dog OCT performance after saline, but not after oxytocin. Seventy-five pet dogs and their owners were recruited to participate in two OCTs, 5-15 days apart, once after the dog received intranasal oxytocin and once after receiving saline. Owners completed the PoDIaCS and another survey relating to pet ownership before OCT 1, and the MDORS and PAQ before OCT 2. After saline administration, scores on the anxious subscale of the PAQ were a negative predictor of dog OCT performance using pointing cues, while subscale 6 of the PoDIaCS, ‘contagion of human emotions’, positively predicted performance using gazing cues. None of the questionnaire subscales were predictive of performance on the OCT after oxytocin administration. Results suggest that a dog’s ‘natural’ ability to follow human pointing cues and anxious attachment in owners are inversely related, whilst a dog’s ‘natural’ ability to follow human gazing cues is positively related to owner-rated empathic ability of the dog.</p>