Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

You Can Judge A Bearer By Its Bark: Dogs Use Sound To Size Up Conspecifics, Zachary Silver

CrissCross

A variety of mammalian species use vocalizations to perceive the size of conspecifics. This ability may be an evolutionary adaptation shared by many mammalian species allowing them to detect the presence of a threat when visual resources are scarce or unavailable. Specifically, some mammals demonstrate prolonged attention to manipulated calls that suggest a larger conspecific compared to those suggesting a smaller conspecific. In humans this behavioral effect depends on the observer’s size—perceptions of ‘big’ or ‘small’ may differ between individuals. We explored whether this generalizes to other species by manipulating formant dispersion of dogs’ own barks to create synthetic barks …