Babies understand dogs

Gibson, an obviously happy dog

Have you seen the media response to the July 2009 article in Developmental Psychology on babies & dogs? "Infants’ intermodal perception of canine (Canis familairis) facial expressions and vocalizations" by authors Flom, Whipple & Hyde is taking the world by storm, with coverage in DiscoveryNews, LiveScience®, Physorg.com, and more.

The researchers describe how they showed babies (ages 6-24 months) unfamiliar with dogs two pictures: one dog with an aggressive expression and a second photo of the same dog with a non-aggressive posture. Before hearing the barks, the babies showed no preference for either photo and stared around the room at other things in addition to looking at the pictures. But after hearing the barks, babies as young as six months understood the connection between the pictures and the sounds. In older babies, their first look went toward the correct dog picture upon hearing the bark. The study showed that babies responded to the information differently as they got older. Younger babies spent more time staring at the pictures, apparently trying to figure out what was going on.

Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer for LiveScience®, recently covered the study and interviewed one of the authors. You can see examples of the pictures the babies were shown (the aggressive dog pictures are scary!) and the researcher's (sometimes humorous) thoughts about the study in her article, Babies Grasp Dogs' Emotions.

As our baby approaches the six month mark, I often wonder what she is thinking. She responds to our smiles with smiles of her own. Clearly, understanding emotion is a priority for the little ones. "[These] new findings come on the heels of a study from the same Brigham Young University lab showing that infants can detect mood swings in Beethoven's music," reports Physorg.com. I wonder if babies ever smile at dogs?

Our Princess often startles from loud noise, but our dog's bark has never bothered her. She even sleeps through our dog's (sometimes protracted) barking jags. Somehow, knowing that Princess senses our dog's mood makes me feel better about them sharing her Boppy® pillow.


Photo credit of happy dog Gibson: Mike McCune, through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Walk your way to mental clarity

Photo credit: Leon Brooks

Do you want to improve your ability to concentrate? Take a walk!


But wait! Don't just walk anywhere.






In the paper "The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature" (Berman, et. al, 2008), published in Psychological Science, the authors discuss how a walk through a natural setting can refresh your brain. A walk in the city seldom does; it requires too much directed attention. Car horns force you to focus on not getting run over. You have to consciously ignore billboards, ringing cell phones, and other mentally jarring intrusions just to get some peace. Natural settings, on the other hand, give your brain some much needed breathing room. You might see and hear interesting things, but they aren't urgently forcing your brain to pay attention.

(Mama Joules' digresses: OK, so I have to wonder about this. What if your natural setting isn't so peaceful? Maybe you are hiking through an untamed forest complete with stinging insects, the threat of extreme weather, and the potential for attacks by large hungry wildlife? Would you still feel refreshed and restored afterward?!)

The authors conducted a study among college students and sent them for walks under different conditions. The students were able to concentrate better on a memory test after a walk along a wooded path (as opposed to the densely populated city street). This effect held true even if the participants were in a bad mood or the weather was foul.

So, the next time that you or your child are stuck on a hard problem -- be it homework, a tax question, or how to seat your relatives at the dinner table so that they won't fight over the rolls -- take a time out and go for a walk in the park.

(But take my advice: If you're seeking solace and mental restoration, go for a relatively tame natural setting. No bears!)

Dreamspace

Photo credit: Steve Karg, BurningWell.org
Why do we dream? This is a fun question to ponder, because no one really knows.

I've heard a number of theories as to why we dream, such as dreams are the mind's way of working out problems or that they are simply part of a random process that allows the brain to rest. Neuroscientist Mark Solms, in Hara Estroff Marano's Psychology Today article Why We Dream postulates a different idea. Solms thinks that dreaming provides a distraction for the brain that allows the body to rest.

I have my own theory. I think that dreaming allows us access to other dreaming people so that we can work together to solve problems. Think about it. How many times do you wake up with a solution to a problem that seems to come from nowhere? Do you ever dream about things that you'd never think about during your waking hours?

Last night, I was scanning an Internet discussion board about a current missing child case. Two women commented that they had had the same dream: the missing little girl was surrounded by women, but ran to them when they knelt down and held out their arms to her. Why were these women independently having the same dream?

I offer these anecdotal (and totally personal and biased) dream experiences for you to ponder:

Recently, I dreamt about a former co-worker that I haven't seen in over 10 years. I doubt I've even thought of him once during that time. Yet, upon waking, I felt as though we had spent time together and reacquainted ourselves.

Another time, I had a falling out with a close friend. We weren't speaking and I found the situation terribly frustrating. I had two dreams around this time where I met my friend in what I can only call dreamspace. Not only were we still friends, we seemed to understand each other's side of the conflict and held no bitter feelings toward each other. Both times, I woke up confused and disoriented. I still wonder if she had the same dream.

And finally, last night I dreamt about another former co-worker, a friend I've simply lost touch with. In my dream, he was having problems with a current co-worker. I woke up listing solutions for his problem in my mind: "Now, what you need to do is get this guy some guidance counseling. You need to build up his self-confidence. It sounds like he's made progress on the job, but you're still so frustrated with him from before that you can't acknowledge it. And why are you still going to bars with him after work? You can't expect ... Wait a minute. What am I doing?"

Why do you think that we dream? Your guess is as good as mine!