Shelby Science Abstract

Name: Shelby Fredrickson Date: 12/13/08 Per 6 Teacher: McGolrick Subject: GT Science Science Project Abstract This experiment was designed to find out if there is a correlation between a dog’s tail wagging response to various emotive stimuli and their brain lateralization. 16 test dogs were filmed in the same environment as they were shown 5 different stimuli. These stimuli include a toy, a treat, a stranger to the test dog, another dog, and a cat. From the dog’s tail wagging response to these stimuli, their brain lateralization was able to be determined from the maximum angles of the tail wags. The major findings of this project are shown by graphs A-G. 50% of the test dogs were found to be right brained and 40% of the test dogs’ tail wags showed that the dominant side of their brain was their left side. The remaining 10% of the test dogs’ data showed that they were actually whole brained, as the differences between the maximum left and right angles were too small to differentiate between them. Therefore, a final decision on the brain lateralization of the dog could not be reached. Other findings include that there was almost always a very distinct gap between the angles from either side of the tail wag, averaging over 10°, which proves the hypothesis that this preference of the side of the tail wag could show the brain lateralization of the dog. Future experiments should include the filming of a control dog and use even more different types of emotive stimuli.