Introduction:
Rethinking human-dog relationships in a post humanism perspective is something that i want to focus on at FMP. My motivations for this subject are rooted in empathy, human and non-human, ethnographic research playing an essential role in the user experience.
Therefore, my work will focus on exploring ways in which the system or interactive device to experience the consciousness of a non-human other through the UX. -Aim for devise ways of learning about the happiness of pets. -Aim for a better situation, suggest ways to be better owners.
Context:
Broken Bonds: Understanding the Experience of Pet Relinquishment
Every year in the UK, thousands of pets (namely dogs and cats) are relinquished to animal shelters. ( The data comes from the Battersea dogs home）. Some pet owners simply find themselves incapable of adequately caring for their pets and may have no choice but to relinquish them. Thus, there are cases in which pet relinquishment is unfortunate but perhaps unavoidable. However, there still appear to be many cases in which pets are relinquished rather casually as if they were disposable objects.
Research : literature review
Dogs as human companions
Historically, dogs and humans existed in cooperative relationships, where dogs were used to hunt, guard, or herd livestock (Coppinger & Schneider, 1995).
Evidence from ancient burials, however, shows an early emotional connection between dogs and humans, where dogs were sometimes buried together with humans (Morey, 2006).
Today, by providing companionship and affection, dogs play an important role in their owners' lives (e.g. Robins et al., 1995).
Most dog owners report that they are emotionally involved with their dog, as with family members or friends (Archer, 1997; Barker & Barker, 1988; Voith, 1985).
Serpell (2004) suggests that many humans cultivate optimistic emotions and behaviour while caring for dogs due to an emotional relationship close to that developed between mother and infant.
However, it is important to note that these emotions are not due to the mere presence of the dog, but are more likely to be linked to the type or consistency of the relationship between the owner and his dog (Budge et al., 1998; Podberscek, 2006).
human-dog communicate
Indeed, Ekman (2003) also notes that his research has unfortunately shown that most of us are not very good at interpreting how other individuals feel unless the phrases are solid.
It is no surprise then that dogs' efforts to communicate their feelings to people are often mistaken and ignored. The loud, clear and concise interaction that is then labelled as aggression, a mental illness or a spiteful act of coercion is much too much to be anticipated, and what alternative should they have? "If we do not listen to the whispers, dogs have no option but to shout"If the whispers are not listened to, dogs have no choice but to shout.
Surprisingly, dogs like to learn to read us, assess our emotions and even our state of physiological health. Dogs are loyal to the bond between dogs and humans, and they still and effectively strive to understand us (Payne et al. 2015).
Emotions and Anthropomorphism
Scholars offer different views on whether dogs feel emotions like humans.
According to Descartes： "when a dog is hit, the sound emitted is no different to that of a machine not working properly" He claimed that because an animal does not think, it can not feel (Veitch 2008). Nicholas extended Descartes' ideas, summed up the view when he claimed that animals "eat without pleasure, cry without pain, act without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing."(Jolley2000)
However，Darwin has written extensively about dog behaviour, intelligence and emotions, often using his dogs as examples. He believed that dogs had emotions such as love, fear, shame, and rage, as well as dreams, and the ability to imitate and reason (Darwin, 1871). Mills et al. (2014) research the neurobiology of stress, which supports crucial emotional states' existence and their accompanying emotional reactions in dogs. The newest results show that dogs possess many similarities in brain structures that perceive emotions in human beings( Engle & Zentall 2016).
Anthropomorphism has been theorised and studied from many different perspectives.
(some believe) using anthropomorphisms in the study of animal behaviour is "dangerous," an "incubus" from which the field must "struggle to free itself" (Kennedy 1992). and the recent rise in these attributions "risks bringing back the dirty bathwater as we rescue the baby" (Wynne 2004).
Simultaneously, most esteemed animal behaviour experts believe that anthropomorphism will allow people to better understand animals (Bekoff and Allen 1997; Miklosi 2015, Panksepp 2005). McConnell (2007) believes that humans have only their own interpretation of animal interactions, and Panksepp argued that behaviourists who were already attempting to see animals as unconscious zombies quickly become both dishonest and unscientific (Panksepp 2003). Nevertheless, it continues to be claimed that creatures with human characteristics are often wrongly assigned (Wynne 2007).
Practice review :
A holiday from being human (GoatMan)
GoatMan is the work of designer Thomas Thwaites，he plots to escape the anxiety of modern urban existence by plunging himself as deeply as possible into the animal world. The project raises a serious question：What exactly is it that differentiates us from the animals? GoatMan offers an absurdist approach to answering this age-old question. Humans trying on animal characteristics, both physically or mentally, is not a new concept. However, while Thwaites' premise was compelling, his conclusions were not. He seems ultimate to enjoy his few days of goat life but fails to give it much meaning. Despite this, his project encouraged me to take a crazier, more open-minded view to exploring the human-dog relationship.
In the eyes of animal:
The second example of this project is in the eyes of animal, commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices and the Forestry Commission from Forest Art England. The webpage allows the viewer to access the senses of three British species to experience the restored forest scene in front of them at a 360° angle. And the footage has been screen-adapted to suit the differences in vision of these species, with scenic footage shot with the aid of LIDAR scans, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) or drones and bespoke 360° cameras, giving the project a first-person adventure game-like quality to the pages. What is surprising is its professional sound production, using recordings from Grizedale Forest in the north of England, set to a binaural soundscape. This is an important example of how well the idea put forward by the producers to restore the animal's perspective using technical means was executed. This form of sensory transformation gives a reliable guide to understanding the animal's perspective.
In a way to start picturing what could I design for, me and my group partner started to find the problem of human-dog relationship through design thinking, and perhaps we can solve it, create a new experience that connects people and dogs and in doing so move the human-dog relationship in a more harmonious and equal direction.
Reference:
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P., 1991. Organisational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organisation Science, 2(1), pp.40-57.
Carnicke, S.M., 2000. Stanislavsky’s system. Hodge, Alison. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. London: Routledge, pp.11-36.
Coren, S., 2016. Which Emotions Do Dogs Actually Experience? Modern Dog Magazine.
Coppinger, R. and Schneider, R., 1995. The evolution of working dogs. In ‘The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour and Interactions with People’.(Ed. J. Serpell.) pp. 21–47.
Ekman, P. and Friesen, W.V., 2003. Unmasking the face: A guide to recognising emotions from facial clues. Ishk.
Wright, H.F., Wilkinson, A., Croxton, R.S., Graham, D.K., Harding, R.C., Hodkinson, H.L., Keep, B., Cracknell, N.R. and Zulch, H.E., 2017. Animals can assign novel odours to a known category. Scientific Reports, 7(1), pp.1-6.
Fox, M., 1981. Relationships between humans and non-human animals in interrelations between people and pets. In A Symposium on the human-companion animal bond. London.
Gillam, T., 2004. Creating links between mental health services for adults and those for children and adolescents. The Mental Health Review, 9(2), p.20.
Haraway, D.J., 2003. The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness (Vol. 1, pp. 3-17). Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Serpell, J.A. and Paul, E.S., 2011. Pets in the Family: An Evolutionary. The Oxford handbook of evolutionary family psychology, p.297.
Turcsán, B., Szánthó, F., Miklósi, Á. and Kubinyi, E., 2015. Fetching what the owner prefers? Dogs recognise disgust and happiness in human behaviour. Animal cognition, 18(1), pp.83-94.
Jolley, N., 2000. Malebranche on the Soul. The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, pp.31-58.
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