Fig 1.
Positioning of the subject ratings of human, dog, object and pixel stimuli on the classical valence (x-axis; 1 = negative, 7 = positive) and arousal (y-axis; 1 = low arousal, 7 = high arousal) dimensions. Left: Subject grand mean ratings with SEM, Right: Individual subject mean ratings of each category. PH = Pleasant Humans, PD = Pleasant Dogs, NH = Neutral Humans, ND = Neutral Dogs, TH = Threatening Humans, TD = Threatening Dogs, PI = Pixels, OB = Objects.
Fig 2.
Subject ratings of happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, fear and anger / aggressiveness (on a scale from 1 (min) to 7 (max) for all the stimulus categories (Pleasant Humans, Pleasant Dogs, Neutral Humans, Neutral Dogs, Threatening Humans, Threatening Dogs, Pixel, and Object (Mean ± SEM)).
Table 1.
Differences of emotion ratings within dog expressions.
Planned comparisons of the subject ratings of discrete emotions (Emotion 1 vs. Emotion 2) for each of the dog expression categories. Significant differences are marked on the beta values with asterisks (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001) and the results with p-values above the FDR threshold are written in bold type.
Table 2.
Difference of emotion ratings between stimuli.
Planned comparisons of the subject ratings of discrete emotions between dog expressions and other stimulus categories (Stimulus 1 vs. Stimulus 2). Ratings were compared between dog expressions, dog vs. human expressions, and dog expressions vs. objects and pixels. Significant differences are marked on the beta values with asterisks (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001) and the results with p-values above the FDR threshold are written in bold type.
Table 3.
Connections of psychological factors to the stimulus ratings.
Ratings of arousal, valence, happiness and anger/aggressiveness were predicted with Extraversion (Ex), Neuroticism (Neur), Emotional Concern (EC), Perspective-taking (PT), animal-directed Emotional Concern (aniEC) and animal-directed Perspective-taking (aniPT) factors. Connections of dog stimulus ratings with dog experience were obtained with dog expertise (Expe) and dog exposure (Expo) predictors. Significant regression coefficients (beta values) are marked with asterisks (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001) and the results with p-values above the FDR threshold are written in bold type.
Table 4.
Connections of psychological factors to the response times in rating stimulus valence.
Response times for valence estimation were tested with Emotional Concern (EC), Perspective-taking (PT), animal-directed Emotional Concern (aniEC) and animal-directed Perspective-taking (aniPT), Extraversion (Ex) and Neuroticism (Neur). Connections of dog stimuli with dog experience were obtained with dog expertise (Expe) and dog exposure (Expo) measures. Significant regression coefficients (beta values) are marked with asterisks (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001).