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A series of experiments was conducted in order to evaluate a theory proposed by Heyes and Saggerson (2000) of how one animal is able to imitate the action of another animal. A fundamental assumption of the theory is that animal's are able to discriminate between the natural movements of other animals on the basis of dynamic cues created by the transition from one posture to another. The results from Experiment 1 to 3 revealed for the first time that pigeons and budgerigars are indeed sensitive to the dynamic cues created by different movements. These cues were shown to be effective with inverted images (Experiment 4), but not degraded, point-light images (Experiment 5). A further assumption of the theory is that imitation will be evident whenever one animal has the opportunity to observe the actions of another animal. This assumption gained support from the results of Experiment 7, but not Experiment 6. Overall the results lend strong support to the theory.

In some instances, dogs show proficient skill in search tasks involving object permanence and gestures from humans, yet it is unclear the extent to which they rely on associative learning to solve these tasks. To address this issue, the Mediational Learning Paradigm (Rumbaugh, 1984) was modified to include 1) object cues 2) human communicative cues and 3) non-social physical cues. In the initial discrimination, two containers were presented at locations A and B with reward contingency A+B-. Once a specified performance criterion was met, the rewarded location was switched and three conditions were presented: the original locations (A-B+), and each location paired with a novel location (A-C+, B+D-). Associative learning predicted low performance in A-B+ due to pre-existing tendency to search A and avoid B, where novel location conditions involve only one of these. Alternatively, associative strategy would predict equal performance in all conditions, as search is informed by object cues or human gestures. In the absence of any cues, dogs relied on associative learning, and the same was true when object cues were presented at the point of reversal. Communicative gestures from humans led dogs to shift away from associative processes, supporting the notion dogs have a comprehension in socio-communication with humans. However, after cue duration was matched with an object cue, dogs were also able to override associative learning without a socio-communicative cue. Additionally, non-social physical cues in the reversal phase were sufficient for dogs to override the effects of associative learning, but dogs were not able to discriminate based on these cues alone. These results suggest that when food location changes, dogs are prone to search the same location even when there are cues indicating the correct location. Dogs comprehend human pointing cues, but require explicit cues to break away from associative learning as a search strategy. Social cues maximise the chances of searching correctly, but they can also benefit from explicit non-social cues.

This thesis examines representations of animal and human faces during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries to investigate how animal faces inform, challenge, and extend representations and theories of animality, and of the human face. Two texts that greatly influenced theories of face-reading are Johann Casper Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy: For the Promotion of the Knowledge and the Love of Mankind (English translation published in 1789) and Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). They mark a shift between discourses privileging physiognomy, the immovable features of the face, and those focusing on pathognomy, the expressions of the face in motion. This shift had an immediate effect on the way that faces were viewed and represented both in terms of how species and individuals were classified and identified and how they were seen to mediate aesthetic and affective communication and response. This thesis argues that literary and scientific treatments of faces in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are comprised of various negotiations between physiognomic and pathognomic discourses: for example, bringing about shifts from methods of face-reading that seek to classify, and those that aim to achieve communication with the face under scrutiny. Studying facial identification and interaction between members of the same species and across species boundaries provides a means to access new dimensions of these debates: it is through the animal face that these shifts are exemplified. Identification, classification, and communication with the animal face contributes to analysis of the relationship between observer and observed in face-reading discourse. In addition to Lavater’s and Darwin’s works, the thesis explores a selection of texts from a variety of disciplines, demonstrating that changing representations of the animal face infiltrate the images and prose of contemporary science, philosophy, fiction, and journalism. The dialogues between these disciplines engage debates surrounding evolution, theology, and the creation of taxonomical hierarchies of man and animals. This thesis is relevant to modern work across a variety of disciplines –– science, psychology, and critical animal studies –– as well as to criticism on discourses of emotions, morality, and aesthetics.

This thesis sets out to identify and explain the encouragements and constraints (both 'internal' academic, and 'external' institutional, political, legislative and social) bearing upon the progress of British scientific studies of animal behaviour between the late nineteenth century, when Great Britain held a dominant position resulting from the influence of Darwinian theories, and the 1970s, when, internationally, animal behaviour studies reflected a wide range of methods and applications. The analysis of these influences is supported by an accompanying consideration of the nature of the work that resulted. Although a focus is held on British contexts, the early loss of the lead in the subject has required an investigation of contrasting conditions encouraging its ensuing development especially in the United States of America, where the favourable institutional and cultural environment help to explain why its absence in the United Kingdom restricted development there. The later interactions of laboratory animal psychology and ethology, the continuing role of key figures (a significant proportion of whom in the first quarter of this century were women) including their backgrounds, interests and achievements, together with political attitudes to science, organized professional activity, and the policies of individual academic establishments, bring the study through later decades to the point of further influences, such as that concerning the expansion of the universities, international collaboration in the development of new theories, and the strengthened awareness of ethical cost in experiment. Original surveys reveal the pattern of output in terms of named investigators, work bases, subject areas and animals used, from the main specialist British journals between 1938 and 1959; the principal investigators of the 1960s, with an assessment of their work; and all known published work undertaken in Britain in the 1970s, including full details of two specimen years, and of the activities of the decade's more productive workers.

No description available.

Domestic dogs have co-habited with humans for at least 15000 years. Close social interaction between the two species has promoted inter-specific communication and dogs now show advanced skills in responding to human signals in comparison to wolves. However, research into dogs' abilities to interpret human signals has predominantly focussed on visual gestures, while their responses to vocal signals remain under-investigated. Exploring the perception of human speech by dogs, a phylogenetically distant species, could provide new insights into the evolution of mammal communication. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to assess human speech perception by dogs. Speech is composed of two main communicative components: the segmental phonemic cues carrying the linguistic content and the supra-segmental cues transmitting information about the speaker such as their gender, age and emotional state. I first explore how dogs perceive supra-segmental cues, determining that they are capable of the cross-modal discrimination of human gender. I then provide a review detailing the mechanisms underlying cross-modal associations in mammal communication, before testing which of these mechanisms may enable dogs to cross-modally associate cues to human age. The results indicate that dogs learn to match some voices to humans according to their age category, while also perceiving more general cross-modal correspondences in the environment. Finally, I investigate how dogs dissociate the main communicatory components of speech during processing, providing evidence that dogs differentially process segmental and supra-segmental cues according to their communicative content. In doing so, dogs appear to express parallel hemispheric biases to those reported in humans. Additionally, the results provide the first clear demonstration that dogs attend to the combinatory structure of the phonemic content in learnt commands. Overall, this thesis extends our knowledge of dogs' perception of human signals, indicating that they are capable of perceiving each of the main components of speech in a functionally relevant manner. Together the results suggest that dogs share some of the cognitive and social processes involved in speech perception with human listeners.

by Dimitris Bertsimas. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-40).

Στόχος της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η υλοποίηση ενός αλγορίθμου για την ανίχνευση και παρακολούθηση του δορυφορικού σήματος υπό διάφορες συνθήκες διάδοσης στο κανάλι. Αρχικά αναλύεται η δομή ενός δορυφορικού συστήματος επικοινωνιών και περιγράφονται τα σημαντικότερα στοιχεία του τόσο στο επίγειο όσο και στο διαστημικό τμήμα. Στη συνέχεια παρουσιάζεται το περιβάλλον του καναλιού μέσα στο οποίο γίνεται η διάδοση των ηλεκτρομαγνητικών κυμάτων και αναλύονται οι σημαντικότεροι παράγοντες εξασθένισης και αλλοίωσης του σήματος. Τέλος, γίνεται αναφορά στα σημαντικότερα υπάρχοντα συστήματα παρακολούθησης των δορυφορικών κεραιών σε ένα από τα οποία βασίστηκε και ο αλγόριθμος παρακολούθησης που δημιουργήθηκε μέσω του προγράμματος Matlab. / The main purpose of this thesis is the development of a basic algorithm capable of tracking the satellite signal under various propagation scenarios. At first, an analytical presentation of both earth and the space segment of the satellite system is being held. Afterwards, the basic elements of the satellite link are explained, as well as their negative effects on the radio-wave propagation mechanism. Finally, a brief reference on the most used antenna tracking systems is made, before we move on to the development of our own step-tracking algorithm in order to simulate the antenna tracking procedure under realistic transmission conditions.

The various aspects of hospital environments have been shown to affect individuals psychologically and physiologically. One aspect of this, sound, has been thoroughly documented through acoustic measurements along with the potential adverse effects high sound level has on patients and nurses. Yet within hospitals, the character of the sound – the soundscape or the auditory landscape – is often overlooked in favour of this focus on sound level. This project has led to an improved understanding of the character and perception of hospital sounds using a triangulation of methods, with the intention of contributing to knowledge on how to improving the soundscape. Firstly, an interview study with patients and nurses within a cardiothoracic (CT) ward at a UK hospital was carried out to understand perceptions of, and thoughts towards, the soundscape. This led to the development of a conceptual model linking the relationships between various concepts and components of perception thereby mapping the perception of the soundscape and the feelings it evoked. A key aspect to perception – the notion of coping through habituating to sounds, became the foundation for subsequent work testing positive interventions. These complex feelings elicited by the soundscape were then reduced into a twodimensional perceptual space, extracted from a listening evaluation using Principal Component Analysis. Labelled ‘Relaxation’ and ‘Interest & Understanding’, these axies can represent the emotional-cognitive response stimulated by the CT ward sounds. Finally, potentially positive interventions were assessed using listening evaluations with participants rating additional natural and steady state sounds, along with a cognitive intervention of sound source information (SSI). It was found that the interventions resulted in a small (ƞ2=0.05) but significant effect (p=.001) on the ‘Relaxation’ response. Natural sounds were most effective, with a less conclusive but still significant effect present for steady state sounds and SSI. The ‘Interest & Understanding’ dimension was non-significantly affected. Exploring this further, a between groups in-situ study assessed the benefit of SSI. The first group received SSI, the second received none. It was found that SSI had a small to medium significant effect (r=0.26-0.31, p=<.05) on ‘Interest & Understanding’ but not ‘Relaxation’. The project successfully developed a new way of assessing the perception of hospital sounds in a perceptual space. Using this approach it was concluded that natural sounds (here, the sounds of birdsong and a stream) provide a consistent way to improve the soundscape. However, a new approach of using SSI was successfully tested and was supported by a theoretical underpinning of cognitive reappraisal. Importantly, this offers an easier way to manipulate perception through potentially a reappraisal of the soundscape. Therefore, it was also concluded from the new findings and new theory that SSI could be used to create a positive response from people within hospital ward environments.