Ted Talk with Temple Grandin

A really great watch.

When your feeling down

Article from the Journal.ie

"

DOGS HAVE THE ability to combine information from a number of senses to recognise human emotion.

That ability has never been seen outside of humans.

Researchers have now shown that dogs can form abstract mental representations of positive and negative emotional states, and are not simply displaying learned behaviours when responding to the expressions of people and other dogs.

The findings from a team of animal behaviour experts and psychologists the University of Lincoln, UK, and University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, have been published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

The researchers presented 17 domestic dogs with pairings of images and sounds conveying different combinations of positive (happy or playful) and negative (angry or aggressive) emotional expressions in humans and dogs.

The team found the dogs spent significantly longer looking at the facial expressions which matched the emotional state of the vocalisation, for both human and canine subjects.

Dr Kun Guo, from the University of Lincoln’s School of Psychology says that the study shows that dogs can recognise emotions, not just facial expressions.

Our study shows that dogs have the ability to integrate two different sources of sensory information into a coherent perception of emotion in both humans and dogs. To do so requires a system of internal categorisation of emotional states.

“This cognitive ability has until now only been evidenced in primates and the capacity to do this across species only seen in humans.”"

Source

Dogs On The Inside

Prison Life

This is a documentary about introducing stray dogs that were kept in the pound to prison inmates. It was a very interesting watch as you can really see both the inmate and the pet develop. They both develop trust in each other and build confidence. It is also said that the inmates learn patience while they give the pet a sense of security.

What I feel this documentary proves is that a dog shows unconditional love. No matter who you are.

Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin

Research has led me to Temple Grandin who a leader in autism research and has a unique way of understanding autism. Grandin believes that we can understand the characteristics of autism by understanding the behaviour of animals. Grandin states that autism can be attributed to our own animal instinct becoming more prominent in us.


When it comes to understanding autism we need to understand how these people think. Grandin says there are 3 types of thinkers:

1. Photo realistic thinkers, those who think in pictures and not words, these are the kids who are poor at algebra.
2. Pattern thinkers, those who enjoy music and math.
3. Verbal mind, who thinks in words and not images, usually poor at drawing.

Animals are sensory based thickeners which includes all of the previously mentioned methods of thinking. Grandin designs handling facilities for cattle and has also written a number of boots including 'Thinking In Pictures.' 

I plan on following up on more of Temple Grandin's research as it is extremely interesting.

My Goal

This project started off with a simple survey wanting to find out what pets everyone has. It was a simple idea, take a selfie with your pets and # NCADPets.  I received a great response which gave a great insight into what pets everyone has. I have set myself a list of tasks to be completed by the end of the month to complete my research including a day in the life, interviews and hopefully volunteering