Gabriella Lakatos | University of Hertfordshire (original) (raw)

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Papers by Gabriella Lakatos

PloS one, 2014

Animal Cognition, 2014

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether dogs can get engaged in social 34 interac... more The aim of the present study was to investigate whether dogs can get engaged in social 34 interaction with an unfamiliar robot and utilise the communicative signals of it, and to 35 examine whether the level of sociality showed by the robot affects the dogs" 36 performance. We have hypothesized that dogs would be more successful in reacting to 37 the communicative signals of a robot if the robot shows interactive social behaviour in 38 general (both towards humans and the dogs) than if it behaves in a machine-like asocial 39 way. 40

Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2005

Dogs' (Canis familiaris) and cats' (Felis catus) interspecific communicative behavior toward huma... more Dogs' (Canis familiaris) and cats' (Felis catus) interspecific communicative behavior toward humans was investigated. In Experiment 1, the ability of dogs and cats to use human pointing gestures in an object-choice task was compared using 4 types of pointing cues differing in distance between the signaled object and the end of the fingertip and in visibility duration of the given signal. Using these gestures, both dogs and cats were able to find the hidden food; there was no significant difference in their performance. In Experiment 2, the hidden food was made inaccessible to the subjects to determine whether they could indicate the place of the hidden food to a naive owner. Cats lacked some components of attention-getting behavior compared with dogs. The results suggest that individual familiarization with pointing gestures ensures high-level performance in the presence of such gestures; however, species-specific differences could cause differences in signaling toward the human.

PLoS ONE, 2014

The oxytocin system has a crucial role in human sociality; several results prove that polymorphis... more The oxytocin system has a crucial role in human sociality; several results prove that polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene are related to complex social behaviors in humans. Dogs' parallel evolution with humans and their adaptation to the human environment has made them a useful species to model human social interactions. Previous research indicates that dogs are eligible models for behavioral genetic research, as well. Based on these previous findings, our research investigated associations between human directed social behaviors and two newly described (2212AG, 19131AG) and one known (rs8679684) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory regions (59 and 39 UTR) of the oxytocin receptor gene in German Shepherd (N = 104) and Border Collie (N = 103) dogs. Dogs' behavior traits have been estimated in a newly developed test series consisting of five episodes: Greeting by a stranger, Separation from the owner, Problem solving, Threatening approach, Hiding of the owner. Buccal samples were collected and DNA was isolated using standard protocols. SNPs in the 39 and 59 UTR regions were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction based techniques followed by subsequent electrophoresis analysis. The gene-behavior association analysis suggests that oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms have an impact in both breeds on (i) proximity seeking towards an unfamiliar person, as well as their owner, and on (ii) how friendly dogs behave towards strangers, although the mediating molecular regulatory mechanisms are yet unknown. Based on these results, we conclude that similarly to humans, the social behavior of dogs towards humans is influenced by the oxytocin system.

ACM/IEEE 10th International Conference on Human-Robot Interactions, 2015

How do mistakes made by a robot affect its trustworthiness and acceptance in human-robot collabor... more How do mistakes made by a robot affect its trustworthiness and acceptance in human-robot collaboration? We investigate how the perception of erroneous robot behavior may influence human interaction choices and the willingness to cooperate with the robot by following a number of its unusual requests. For this purpose, we conducted an experiment in which participants interacted with a home companion robot in one of two experimental conditions: (1) the correct mode or (2) the faulty mode. Our findings reveal that, while significantly affecting subjective perceptions of the robot and assessments of its reliability and trustworthiness, the robot's performance does not seem to substantially influence participants' decisions to (not) comply with its requests. However, our results further suggest that the nature of the task requested by the robot, e.g. whether its effects are revocable as opposed to irrevocable, has a significant impact on participants' willingness to follow its instructions.

Plos ONE, 2014

In the last few years there was an increasing interest in building companion robots that interact... more In the last few years there was an increasing interest in building companion robots that interact in a socially acceptable way with humans. In order to interact in a meaningful way a robot has to convey intentionality and emotions of some sort in order to increase believability. We suggest that human-robot interaction should be considered as a specific form of inter-specific interaction and that human-animal interaction can provide a useful biological model for designing social robots. Dogs can provide a promising biological model since during the domestication process dogs were able to adapt to the human environment and to participate in complex social interactions. In this observational study we propose to design emotionally expressive behaviour of robots using the behaviour of dogs as inspiration and to test these dog-inspired robots with humans in inter-specific context. In two experiments (wizard-of-oz scenarios) we examined humans' ability to recognize two basic and a secondary emotion expressed by a robot. In Experiment 1 we provided our companion robot with two kinds of emotional behaviour (''happiness'' and ''fear''), and studied whether people attribute the appropriate emotion to the robot, and interact with it accordingly. In Experiment 2 we investigated whether participants tend to attribute guilty behaviour to a robot in a relevant context by examining whether relying on the robot's greeting behaviour human participants can detect if the robot transgressed a predetermined rule. Results of Experiment 1 showed that people readily attribute emotions to a social robot and interact with it in accordance with the expressed emotional behaviour. Results of Experiment 2 showed that people are able to recognize if the robot transgressed on the basis of its greeting behaviour. In summary, our findings showed that dog-inspired behaviour is a suitable medium for making people attribute emotional states to a non-humanoid robot.

Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications, 2013

Abstract -This demo paper aims to demonstrate how dogs' behavior could help to design social beha... more Abstract -This demo paper aims to demonstrate how dogs' behavior could help to design social behavior for robots. Adopting a so-called "hearing robot" scenario we show that the dog-inspired leading behavior implemented in robots can be effective in human-robot interactions independently of the robots' embodiment.

Artificial Life (ALIFE), 2013 IEEE Symposium, 2013

Crossing Boundaries: Investigating Human-Animal Relationships, 2012

Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanità, 2011

Journal of Veterinary Behavior-clinical Applications and Research, 2011

P , 0.001). The gazing behavior differed in all image categories (P , 0.001). The total fixation ... more P , 0.001). The gazing behavior differed in all image categories (P , 0.001). The total fixation time was longest for images of dogs (534 6 80 ms) and shorter for alphabetic characters (94 6 120 ms), and in between for images of humans (446 6 81 ms) and toys (294 6 86 ms). We conclude that the eye tracking system can be used for assessing dogs' visual perception. According to our preliminary results dogs can spontaneously discriminate images with differing content.

Animal Behaviour, 2011

breed difference Canis lupus familiaris development dog gaze human-directed communication

Journal of Veterinary Behavior-clinical Applications and Research, 2009

Animal Cognition, 2009

We investigated whether dogs and 2-, and 3-year-old human infants living, in some respects, in ve... more We investigated whether dogs and 2-, and 3-year-old human infants living, in some respects, in very similar social environments are able to comprehend various forms of the human pointing gesture. In the first study, we looked at their ability to comprehend different arm pointing gestures (long cross-pointing, forward cross-pointing and elbow cross-pointing) to locate a hidden object. Three-year-olds successfully used all gestures as directional cues, while younger children and dogs could not understand the elbow cross-pointing. Dogs were also unsuccessful with the forward cross-pointing. In the second study, we used unfamiliar pointing gestures i.e. using a leg as indicator (pointing with leg, leg cross-pointing, pointing with knee). All subjects were successful with leg pointing gestures, but only older children were able to comprehend the pointing with knee. We suggest that 3-year-old children are able to rely on the direction of the index finger, and show the strongest ability to generalize to unfamiliar gestures. Although some capacity to generalize is also evident in younger children and dogs, especially the latter appear biased in the use of protruding body parts as directional signals.

International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2007

In this study we examined the effect of the visually emphasized pointing arm in the case of the "... more In this study we examined the effect of the visually emphasized pointing arm in the case of the "Cross-forward pointing" gesture in dogs which proved to be difficult for them in an earlier study . Our hypothesis was that if we emphasize the directionality of the visual cue using different, more contrasting coloured clothes during the tests, the dogs will be able to enhance their performance in two-way choice tasks. Our results showed that the conspicuousness of the pointing signal can affect how dogs perceive it. In contrast to our initial hypothesis pointing in a long white sleeve on a black background did not increase the dogs' performance, while the black sleeves with nude ("white") hands had an enhancing effect. This suggests that dogs need to see a salient body part what overhangs the median of the body silhouette and when the whole body is covered by black colour then the nude (pointing) hand appears as a conspicuous asymmetrical feature on one side of the body. Making the pointing hand less conspicuous makes the effect invariably disappear. Thus in summary we assume that the key aspect of the pointing gesture is not the directionality but the visually asymmetric cue provided by the human informant.