Dogs have been shown to use the direction of humans’ gaze to infer information about hidden food, a behavior referred to as social referencing. We might expect that social dependency towards a handler will be higher for dogs that are more dependent on humans’ presence, especially when faced with uncertain situations. We tested whether there was a relationship between attachment and dependency behaviors and social referencing in companion dogs. Dog owners completed an intake survey that included the previously validated Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ), which gives a score for the degree of separation-related distress behaviors dogs exhibit which we used as a measure for dogs’ attachment and dependence on their owners. These owners then brought their dogs to participate on-location for our experimental set up. We taught the dogs a location-based discrimination task, in which subjects learned to expect a food reward in one location (the positive stimulus), and no reward in an opposing location (the negative stimulus). When dogs approached the positive stimulus faster than the negative stimulus, we intermittently presented them with ambiguous stimuli, i.e. intermediate between the positive and negative stimuli. We measured social referencing as the frequency of glancing behavior of dogs toward their owner or the handler for each trial. We analyzed social referencing by stimuli in order to assess whether dogs would treat ambiguous stimuli as they do the rewarded location or the non-rewarded location with respect to glancing behavior. We hypothesized that dogs with higher C-BARQ scores for separation-related behavior would exhibit higher proportions of social referencing behavior, particularly when presented with ambiguous stimuli. Our research has implications regarding potential effects of canine dependency on their owners in their decisions in certain situations, such as those that introduce ambiguity.

 Domestic dogs express individual differences in personality and perception, affecting their behavior towards objects they encounter in the world. One of these differences is a form of cognitive bias called judgement bias. Dogs that approach an ambiguous stimulus at a rate closer to that of approach towards a rewarded stimulus demonstrate a positive judgement bias. Likewise, dogs who approach at a rate closer to that of a non-rewarded (or aversive) stimulus have a negative judgement bias. Some dogs refuse to approach the non-rewarding stimulus entirely, which can be defined as refusal behavior. We analyzed whether refusal behavior was related to companion dogs’ judgement bias and general fear and anxiety. Dog owners completed the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ), a previously validated questionnaire measuring a variety of individual differences in dog behavior, and, most importantly, fear and anxiety. Afterwards, dogs were brought in for in-person testing. We measured each dog’s latency to approach ambiguous stimuli and compared this to their latency when approaching rewarded versus non-rewarded stimuli. We would expect that dogs who refuse to approach ambiguous stimuli will also exhibit higher C-BARQ scores in fear and anxiety than dogs who do approach ambiguous stimuli. Refusing to approach may also suggest a negative judgement bias. These findings are extremely useful to not only further understand canine behavior and cognition, as refusal to engage with a stimulus may be a future tool to define a canine’s perception of ambiguous stimuli. They also have practical implications for both animal welfare and training efficacy, as individual cognitive differences among dogs may impact how they will respond in behavioral tests and training regimes.

While medical education currently teaches students effective patient-provider communication, it lacks specific training for effective interactions between healthcare providers and patients diagnosed with communication disorders (PCDs), such as dysarthria from Parkinson’s disease. Poor patient-provider communication involving PCDs results in negative patient outcomes. PCDs are at increased risk for medical errors, often report a loss of autonomy, and are less satisfied with their healthcare services compared to those without communication disorders. To address this potential gap in medical education, a training program focused on improving patient-provider communication involving PCDs was conducted with second-year nursing students at the University of Washington. Pre- and post-training simulated medical interactions between nursing students and standardized patients trained to portray dysarthia from Parkinson’s disease were video-recorded. The purpose of this study was to evaluate preliminary inter- and intra-rater reliability of a newly developed rating tool designed to evaluate specific aspects of nursing student communication demonstrated pre- and post-training during these interactions. One speech-language pathologist (SLP) and two SLP graduate students volunteered to each rate a randomized series of twenty, 10-minute video-recorded interactions between nursing students and standardized patients portraying dysarthria. After watching a brief orientation video on how to use the instrument, the participants rated twenty videos, blinded to whether each video was pre- or post-training. Additionally, they were given two final videos to re-rate in order to assess intra-rater reliability. Data collection is still underway. However, after four initial videos were rated by all three raters, preliminary inter-rater reliability calculations have suggested a high level of reliability (ICC = .93). If the instrument demonstrates a high level of inter- and intra-rater reliability, we can use the results of these ratings in future research to validate the instrument and determine the effectiveness of the training program on improving patient-provider communication during medical interactions.