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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Evaluating Differences In Expression Of Neuroticism In Individual Homed Cats And Feral Cat Colonies Across Varying Degrees Of Human Settlement, Sophie Ambrosino
Evaluating Differences In Expression Of Neuroticism In Individual Homed Cats And Feral Cat Colonies Across Varying Degrees Of Human Settlement, Sophie Ambrosino
Theses and Dissertations
Neuroticism is a dimension of personality that was first defined for human psychology as a collective measure of excessive tendencies towards stress, anxiety, fear, unwarranted aggression and/or instability. In a two-part study, this project aimed to identify neuroticism as an observable personality dimension in domesticated cats, and to investigate if the expression of neuroticism varies on an individual and population level in correlation with an increase in environmental stressors and scarcity based upon degree of urbanization of the site. One component of the study surveyed cat owners about personality traits and daily lifestyle of their cats to test the viability …
A Year As A Monk Parakeet, Eric Thompson
A Year As A Monk Parakeet, Eric Thompson
Theses and Dissertations
Monk parakeets are a species of parrot native to subtropical and temperate regions of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia that have been introduced to many parts of the world. Monk Parakeets have lived in Brooklyn, New York since the 1970s and many myths and legends surround how these birds came to live here. This thesis is a description of the behavior of monk parakeets in Brooklyn, New York’s Greenwood Cemetery based on observations I conducted twice a week from January through October of 2023. Because of the unusual nature of this population of parakeets as well as their unique …
The Case Of The Disappearing Owner: Do Dogs Show Behavioral Evidence Of Violation Of Expectation?, Rita Kanagat
The Case Of The Disappearing Owner: Do Dogs Show Behavioral Evidence Of Violation Of Expectation?, Rita Kanagat
Theses and Dissertations
The What the Fluff challenge became a series of viral YouTube videos that started in 2018. In the videos, a person stood behind a blanket in a doorway in front of their dog and lifted and lowered the blanket revealing and obscuring themselves, and finally disappearing with a final blanket drop. The dogs’ reactions were varied but were suggestive of a violation of expectation response. We conducted a community science study that employed methodologies consistent with the What the Fluff Challenge paradigm that were conducted in the owners’ homes with their dogs. Each owner was required to run a control …
Body States Of Asian Elephants Within And Around Protected Areas In The Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand, Caitlyn Thai
Body States Of Asian Elephants Within And Around Protected Areas In The Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand, Caitlyn Thai
Theses and Dissertations
Researchers are becoming increasingly aware that studying a species’ landscape of fear or, more broadly, their emotional states, can better inform cognitive questions about how animals navigate their environments. Vigilance behaviors are one way to determine how certain species perceive and respond to risky situations. Due to rapid environmental change, large animals such as elephants are experiencing risky encounters with humans more often than ever before. This study aims to investigate Asian elephants’ expressions of body states and how they might regulate their behavior based on perceived environmental risk or change. Specifically, we investigated the behavioral responses of Asian elephants …
Do Bats Forage At Different Heights When In The Presence Of Other Species?, Benjamin L. Wagenberg
Do Bats Forage At Different Heights When In The Presence Of Other Species?, Benjamin L. Wagenberg
Theses and Dissertations
Acoustic monitoring was used to examine whether bats forage at different heights in the presence of other species. The data indicate that the presence of other species does affect the foraging height of bats. This data can be used to increase effectiveness of other identification methods using acoustic monitoring.
Visual Illusion Susceptibility In Dogs Using The Ebbinghaus-Titchener Illusion In A Spontaneous Choice Task, Nicolette Becker
Visual Illusion Susceptibility In Dogs Using The Ebbinghaus-Titchener Illusion In A Spontaneous Choice Task, Nicolette Becker
Theses and Dissertations
In recent years, dogs have been a popular test subject when studying visual illusion susceptibility. Multiple studies have investigated whether animals perceive illusions as humans do, but few studies have evaluated dogs’ perception of illusory stimuli. In this thesis, we studied if dogs are visually susceptible to the Ebbinghaus-Titchener illusion when presented in a spontaneous choice task. Subjects were presented two visual images on a board, which had bologna pieces embedded in the stimuli. In control trials, two different sized bologna pieces were placed in the center of the images. In these control conditions, dogs were expected to choose the …
Principles Of Multimodal Integration In The Startle Escape System Of Goldfish, Camille Mcintyre
Principles Of Multimodal Integration In The Startle Escape System Of Goldfish, Camille Mcintyre
Theses and Dissertations
In this study, we revealed how visual and audio stimuli are integrated during goldfish escape startle by analyzing startle response probabilities and latencies evoked by individual and combined presentations of a short (5 ms) audio pips and a long lasting (900 ms) gradually increasing visual looms.