Analyzing and clustering students' application preferences in higher education.

We present a framework based on a higher education application preference list that allows a different type of flexible aggregation and, hence, the analysis and clustering of application data. Preference lists are converted into scores. The proposed approach is demonstrated in the context of higher education applications in Hungary over the period of 2006-2015. Our method reveals that efforts to leverage center-periphery differences do not fulfill expectations. Furthermore, the student's top preference is very hard to influence, and recruiters may build their strategy on information about the first and second choices.

A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children.

The sensitivity of eleven pet dogs and eleven 2.5-year-old children to others' past perceptual access was tested for object-specificity in a playful, nonverbal task in which a human Helper's knowledge state regarding the whereabouts of a hidden toy and a stick (a tool necessary for getting the out-of-reach toy) was systematically manipulated. In the four experimental conditions the Helper either participated or was absent during hiding of the toy and the stick and therefore she knew the place(s) of (1) both the toy and the stick, (2) only the toy, (3) only the stick or (4) neither of them. The subjects observed the hiding processes, but they could not reach the objects, so they had to involve the Helper to retrieve the toy. The dogs were more inclined to signal the place of the toy in each condition and indicated the location of the stick only sporadically. However the children signalled both the location of the toy and that of the stick in those situations when the Helper had similar knowledge regarding the whereabouts of them (i.e. knew or ignored both of them), and in those conditions in which the Helper was ignorant of the whereabouts of only one object the children indicated the place of this object more often than that of the known one. At the same time however, both dogs and children signalled the place of the toy more frequently if the Helper had been absent during toy-hiding compared to those conditions when she had participated in the hiding. Although this behaviour appears to correspond with the Helper's knowledge state, even the subtle distinction made by the children can be interpreted without a casual understanding of knowledge-formation in others.

Detection of temporal patterns in dog-human interaction.

A new time structure model and pattern detection procedures developed by (Magnusson, M.S., 1996. Hidden real-time patterns in intra- and inter-individual behaviour description and detection. Eur. J. Psychol. Assess. 12, 112-123; Magnusson, M.S., 2000. Discovering hidden time patterns in behaviour: T-patterns and their detection. Behav. Res. Methods, Instrum. Comput. 32, 93-110) enables us to detect complex temporal patterns in behaviour. This method has been used successfully in studying human and neuronal interactions (Anolli, L., Duncan, S. Magnusson, M.S., Riva G. (Eds.), 2005. The Hidden Structure of Interaction, IOS Press, Amsterdam). We assume that similarly to interactions between humans, cooperative and communicative interaction between dogs and humans also consist of patterns in time. We coded and analyzed a cooperative situation when the owner instructs the dog to help build a tower and complete the task. In this situation, a cooperative interaction developed spontaneously, and occurrences of hidden time patterns in behaviour can be expected. We have found such complex temporal patterns (T-patterns) in each pair during the task that cannot be detected by "standard" behaviour analysis. During cooperative interactions the dogs' and humans' behaviour becomes organized into interactive temporal patterns and that dog-human interaction is much more regular than yet has been thought. We have found that communicative behaviour units and action units can be detected in the same T-pattern during cooperative interactions. Comparing the T-patterns detected in the dog-human dyads, we have found a typical sequence emerging during the task, which was the outline of the successfully completed task. Such temporal patterns were conspicuously missing from the "randomized data" that gives additional support to the claim that interactive T-patterns do not occur by chance or arbitrarily but play a functional role during the task.

Does dog-human attachment affect their inter-specific cooperation?

Leading a blind or blindfolded person is a complex cooperative task influenced by many factors. The aim of this study was to determine if quality of attachment affects the performance of dog and owner dyads showed on an Obstacle Course. Modified Ainsworth's Strange Situation Test was used for assessing attachment quality. Only one dimension of the attachment, the 'anxiety' factor was found to correlate with behavioural measures of the Obstacle Course (e.g. number of mistakes, initialisation index that reflects which participant initiates more actions in a dyad). We found significant differences of performance between the three groups of dog-owner pairs (pet dog, guide dog and police dog dyads), but we could not show significant differences in the 'attachment' factor among these groups. We concluded that it is not the attachment type that causes the main differences in the leading behaviour of our three study groups. Dogs have an innate ability for cooperation with humans that was enhanced by selective breeding during domestication and this basic ability can be modified by training but seem to be less affected by the relationship with the owner.

Distinguishing logic from association in the solution of an invisible displacement task by children (Homo sapiens) and dogs (Canis familiaris): using negation of disjunction.

Prior research on the ability to solve the Piagetian invisible displacement task has focused on prerequisite representational capacity. This study examines the additional prerequisite of deduction. As in other tasks (e.g., conservation and transitivity), it is difficult to distinguish between behavior that reflects logical inference from behavior that reflects associative generalization. Using the role of negation in logic whereby negative feedback about one belief increases the certainty of another (e.g., a disjunctive syllogism), task-naive dogs (Canis familiaris; n=19) and 4- to 6-year-old children (Homo sapiens; n=24) were given a task wherein a desirable object was shown to have disappeared from a container after it had passed behind 3 separate screens. As predicted, children (as per logic of negated disjunction) tended to increase their speed of checking the 3rd screen after failing to find the object behind the first 2 screens, whereas dogs (as per associative extinction) tended to significantly decrease their speed of checking the 3rd screen after failing to find the object behind the first 2 screens.

Comprehension of human communicative signs in pet dogs (Canis familiaris).

On the basis of a study by D. J. Povinelli, D. T. Bierschwale, and C. G. Cech (1999), the performance of family dogs (Canis familiaris) was examined in a 2-way food choice task in which 4 types of directional cues were given by the experimenter: pointing and gazing, head-nodding ("at target"), head turning above the correct container ("above target"), and glancing only ("eyes only"). The results showed that the performance of the dogs resembled more closely that of the children in D. J. Povinelli et al.'s study, in contrast to the chimpanzees' performance in the same study. It seems that dogs, like children, interpret the test situation as being a form of communication. The hypothesis is that this similarity is attributable to the social experience and acquired social routines in dogs because they spend more time in close contact with humans than apes do, and as a result dogs are probably more experienced in the recognition of human gestures.

Attachment behavior in dogs (Canis familiaris): a new application of Ainsworth's (1969) Strange Situation Test.

Fifty-one owner-dog pairs were observed in a modified version of M. D. S. Ainsworth's (1969) Strange Situation Test. The results demonstrate that adult dogs (Canis familiaris) show patterns of attachment behavior toward the owner. Although there was considerable variability in dogs' attachment behavior to humans, the authors did not find any effect of gender, age, living conditions, or breed on most of the behavioral variables. The human-dog relationship was described by means of a factor analysis in a 3-dimensional factor space: Anxiety, Acceptance, and Attachment. A cluster analysis revealed 5 substantially different classes of dogs, and dogs could be categorized along the secure-insecure attached dimensions of Ainsworth's original test. A dog's relationship to humans is analogous to child-parent and chimpanzee-human attachment behavior because the observed behavioral phenomena and the classification are similar to those described in mother-infant interactions.

Use of experimenter-given cues in dogs.

Since the observations of O. Pfungst the use of human-provided cues by animals has been well-known in the behavioural sciences ("Clever Hans effect"). It has recently been shown that rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) are unable to use the direction of gazing by the experimenter as a cue for finding food, although after some training they learned to respond to pointing by hand. Direction of gaze is used by chimpanzees, however. Dogs (Canis familiaris) are believed to be sensitive to human gestural communication but their ability has never been formally tested. In three experiments we examined whether dogs can respond to cues given by humans. We found that dogs are able to utilize pointing, bowing, nodding, head-turning and glancing gestures of humans as cues for finding hidden food. Dogs were also able to generalize from one person (owner) to another familiar person (experimenter) in using the same gestures as cues. Baseline trials were run to test the possibility that odour cues alone could be responsible for the dogs' performance. During training individual performance showed limited variability, probably because some dogs already "knew" some of the cues from their earlier experiences with humans. We suggest that the phenomenon of dogs responding to cues given by humans is better analysed as a case of interspecific communication than in terms of discrimination learning.

Antipredator behavior in paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis) larvae: the role of genetic factors and paternal influence.

The paradise fish, a small insectivore, coinhabits marshes of Southeast Asia with several predator fish species. Its ability to recognize and avoid harmful fish may depend upon both genetic factors and experience. Here we demonstrate genetic variability between the 20-day-old larvae of two inbred strains of paradise fish (P and S) in predator exploration and avoidance, using predator models. We show that, in comparison to S larvae, P larvae exhibited an elevated frequency of leaping and backing and an increased approach latency when faced with a predator model with eyespots. Analysis of a classical cross system between the two strains revealed significant departure from an additive-dominance genetic model and suggested the involvement of both epistatic effects of several genes and paternal effects. The effect of the paternal influence during the 5-day postspawning period was found to be strain dependent: later predator avoidance behaviors were influenced by the presence of the father in P larvae but not in S larvae. On the basis of these and previous results, we speculate that the 5 postspawning days may represent a developmentally sensitive period during which specific environmental stimulation, e.g., stimuli associated with the father, is critical for later development of appropriate antipredatory responses. We conclude that developmental aspects of antipredatory behavior in paradise fish are influenced by a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors.

The ontogeny of antipredator behavior in paradise fish larvae (Macropodus opercularis) IV. The effect of exposure to siblings.

Twenty-five-day-old larval paradise fish show less avoidance behavior toward a model predator than 20-day-old fish larvae. Laboratory experiments tested two possible hypotheses: The decrease of avoidance behavior is the result of (a) change in the size ratio of larvae/model, or (b) experience with larval siblings. Larval paradise fish did not show greater avoidance of larger models or models with larger eyespots. However, if isolated for 3 days, the antipredator behavior of 25-day-old larvae became similar to younger ones. In further experiments, we raised the larvae in a larger holding tank in order to decrease the rate of encounters among conspecifics. In line with our assumptions, these larvae also showed enhanced avoidance toward a model predator. In sum, our experiments revealed that the continuous exposure to conspecific larvae was the main cause for the reduced antipredator behavior toward models. To account for our results, we suggest that larvae of nonschooling paradise fish habituate to the continuous presence of larval conspecifics and, as a result, they show decreased avoidance to the model predator. We hypothesize that this habituation process might not work in other fish species that show early schooling behavior in their development. In other words, they would not generalize the experience of conspecifics to potential predators.

Learning about the opponent during aggressive encounters in paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis L.): when it takes place?

Dyadic encounters between paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis L.) males were staged. In a first experiment, the duration of the dominance-submissive phase (cohabitation following the end of fighting) and the inter-encounter interval were manipulated. Measuring the duration both of threatening, fighting, mouthlock and head-tail display it was found that the memory of an aggressive encounter largely disappeared after 6 days and the duration of the dominance-submissive experience had no effect on the stability of memory formation in this species. In a second experiment, one group of fighting fish were separated just after the end of the fight, while concomitantly fish still fighting were also separated. On the next day, the aggressive behaviour of these two groups was compared and found that fighting decreased only in the group, of which the members had been able to finish the encounter. Our results show that: (1) post-contest harassment of the submissive has little if any impact on the behaviour changes that result; (2) an aggressive encounter affects the duration and patterns of a subsequent fight only if the fight is completed (i.e. dominance relationship develop); and (3) regardless, of the previous experience memory will fade after 6 days. In conclusion, the experience of winning or losing is the promoter of behavioural changes that result from aggressive experience. It is suggested that the social behaviour of the paradise fish determines the constraints of memory and learning in aggressive situations.

The Influence of Opponent-Related and Outcome-Related Memory on Repeated Aggressive Encounters in the Paradise Fish (Macropodus opercularis).

The aggressive behavior of male paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis) was studied. Fish were subjected to three aggressive encounters on consecutive days. If submissive males encountered the same opponent three times, the last aggressive encounter was very different than the first one. When the animals faced a new opponent each day, the changes were much less pronounced. We conclude that (1) fish are able to recognize their opponents at least one day after the encounter ("social recognition"), and (2) social recognition modifies the effect of prior defeat ("status-related memory") in subsequent encounters.

Is the testing of TFT strategy during predator inspections possible by use of mirror image? A review and some controls of recent studies.

In order to answer some of the questions concerning the "inadequacies" of mirror-images in experiments examining co-operative behaviour during predator inspection, several control experiments were carried out. The average positions (distance from predator's tank) of guppies was influenced by the presence of a preadator, but the effect of previous experience with a predator was manifestated only in the presence of predator. The average position of guppies also depended on the mirror-treatment (changing the length and position) but it was influenced only by the length but not the angle of mirror. The relative independence of the position of the mirror observed in the guppies' behaviour challenges the basic assumption (i.e. closer to the predator by long parallel than short angled mirror) is indeed the result of TFT as interpreted earlier. Instead, the effect of mirror treatment appears superpositioned on the predator inspection as an independent variable. In light of these results we discuss the usefulness of mirror systems in testing predator inspection as TFT-like behaviour.

A pharmacological discrimination of two behavioral forms of the paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis).

Intracranial injections of 5 micrograms/fish (equivalent to 2 nmol/g) of the dopamine agonist Apomorphine into the paradise fish brain considerably decrease the occurrence of escape behavior with a parallel increase of time spent in swimming. All other elements of the behavioral repertoire are unaffected. The simultaneous administration of 0.5 micrograms/fish (equivalent to 0.15 nmol/g) of the dopamine antagonist Pimozide abolishes this effect. In a second experiment a dose dependent decrease in escape behavior was obtained with a parallel increase of swimming. On the bases of these pharmacological data it is concluded that the escape and the swimming reactions are truly independent units but their regulation might be closely related.

Development of open-field and social behavior of the paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis L.).

In a series of experiments, we examined the development of some characteristic behavior elements in the paradise fish. It was shown that the behavior in the open field was dependent on the age of the fish. The attraction of fries of paradise fish toward conspecifics undergo some changes between 12 and 25 days of age: Larger groups become more attractive. Social orientation toward individual conspecifics develops by 24 days of age.

Conditions for recognition of a physical space as two compartments by the paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis, Pisces, Anabantidae).

By using a series of aquaria which were more or less separated into two compartments by a "gate" made of plastic or glass strips, we studied how paradise fish changed their patterns of movement relative to the nature of the gates. We found that opaque plastic gates were well recognized by the paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis) even if the strips were very thin, but that they only changed their pattern of movement when the strips exceeded a certain width. Thus, paradise fish appear to be able to distinguish a physical space of the same size as consisting of either one or two compartments, depending on the material (transparency) and width of the dividing strips.

Life, self-reproduction and information: beyond the machine metaphor.

The problem of representing information in automation models of self-replication is considered. It is shown that, unlike in the natural reproduction process, in a computable model the reproduced entities do not contain all the information necessary for guiding the process. Current theoretical understanding of life and its replication, based on such models, is argued to be essentially inadequate. The solution to this problem is claimed to require recognition of the theoretical fact that information in living systems is different from that subsumed under the category of "knowledge", which is representable as computer programs or triggers of state transitions. A discussion of fundamentals of a new theory of information and its relationship to replication models is given and a new direction of further developments of biological theories is envisioned.

Inheritance of species-specific behaviors in the paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis): a diallel study.

Species-specific elements of the paradise fish's ethogram were recorded in one familiar and three different unfamiliar environments, which were designed to model certain features of this species' natural habitat: (1) a densely vegetated home range, (2) a novel open field, (3) a small novel place, and (4) a small novel place with a predator. The inheritance of the behavioral elements was investigated employing a five-times-replicated diallel cross among three inbred strains. A detailed Hayman analysis of variance and a variance-covariance analysis were performed to uncover the genetic architectures of these phenotypes. Additive genetic effects and/or ambidirectional dominance was found to be characteristic of most species-specific behavioral elements studied, suggesting an evolutionary history of stabilizing selection.

Genotype-environment interaction and the correlation structure of behavioral elements in paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis).

Three inbred strains and all their possible F1 crosses were monitored in one familiar and three unfamiliar situations. Their behavior was described by species-specific elements of the ethogram. Genetic variability was demonstrated both for behavioral elements and for factors extracted by Principal Components Analyses (PCA). We studied how the behavior of genetically different fish changed across situations and examined the interrelations both among variables measured in one situation and between those measured in different ones. Behavioral changes across situations proved to be different for certain strains and crosses, that is, genotype-environment interaction was found. The PCA's carried out for the 4 situations separately yielded unlike factor structures. Another PCA, in which all the variables were included, proved that there was correlation among certain variables measured in different situations. In general, it seems that the corresponding behavioral elements do not always represent the same phene in different situations. We discuss how the genotype-environment interactions can be interpreted, try to define behavioral strategies using the extracted factor structures, and construct a model for the organization of Macropodus behavior.

Variable learning performance: the levels of behaviour organization.

Our experiments were focused on some special aspects of learning in the paradise fish. Passive avoidance conditioning method was used with different success depending on the complexity of the learning tasks. In the case of simple behavioural elements various "constrains" on avoidance learning were found. In a small, covered place the fish were ready to perform freezing reaction and mild punishment increased the frequency and duration of the freezing bouts very substantially. However, it was very difficult to enhance the frequency of freezing by punishment in a tank with transparent walls, where the main response to punishment was escape. The most easily learned tasks were the complex ones which had several different solutions. The fish learned to avoid either side of an aquarium very easily because they could use various behavioural elements to solve the problem. These findings could be interpreted within the framework of different organizational levels of behaviour.