title: Aggressive Bimodal Communication in Domestic Dogs, Canis familiaris.
abstract: Evidence of animal multimodal signalling is widespread and compelling. Dogs' aggressive vocalisations (growls and barks) have been extensively studied, but without any consideration of the simultaneously produced visual displays. In this study we aimed to categorize dogs' bimodal aggressive signals according to the redundant/non-redundant classification framework. We presented dogs with unimodal (audio or visual) or bimodal (audio-visual) stimuli and measured their gazing and motor behaviours. Responses did not qualitatively differ between the bimodal and two unimodal contexts, indicating that acoustic and visual signals provide redundant information. We could not further classify the signal as 'equivalent' or 'enhancing' as we found evidence for both subcategories. We discuss our findings in relation to the complex signal framework, and propose several hypotheses for this signal's function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.|Université Paris Saclay, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, UMR 9197, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France.
authors.forename: Éloïse C
authors.initials: ÉC
authors.lastname: Déaux
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Jennifer A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.affiliation: Université Paris Saclay, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, UMR 9197, Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Charrier
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology*; D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000502:physiology*; D004285:Dogs; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D010775:Photic Stimulation