Sep 13, 2020
Courtney Sexton is a PhD student
researching what we can learn from other species about our own and
how to better interact with animals that share our habitat, like
dogs. She's especially interested in the evolution of nonverbal
communication.
In this podcast, she discusses
Courtney Sexton is a PhD student
with the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at The
George Washington University. She describes for listeners the
different forms of communication throughout the animal kingdom,
including among human animals.
She adds that an interesting aspect of this involves human-dog
coevolution, and studying the relationship may lead to some
dog behaviors explained. In fact, dogs are unique in that
they've adapted to communicate with people almost as well as among
themselves. Humans and dogs have been cohabitating for roughly
30,000 years and
dog social behavior has some similar patterns with humans; she
points to paired mating systems exhibited by dogs and wolves in the
paleo hunter-gatherer era as one example.
Interestingly, dogs have gotten
better at interpreting our signals than vice-versa. There are many
examples of humans simplifying the understanding of dog body
language when something such as tail wagging can signify a gamut of
emotions. Courtney also explains that dogs pick up a great deal of
information from our own facial expressions.
She describes her current research comparing fascial muscle
development in dogs with and without hair coloring markings that
exaggerate certain expressions. This stems from a similar study
done on primates. She adds that researchers are struggling to find
dogs to observe because of the pandemic shut downs and points
listeners to resources, including her own Primate Genomics Lab, if they are interested in participating in
video studies with their dogs.
For more, see her lab
site, cashp.columbian.gwu.edu/primate-genomics,
and her department's website, cashp.columbian.gwu.edu.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK