Last night on the news, one of the networks (Dan Rather, I think) did a
piece on airport security in which they found dogs to be 100% accurate in
sniffing out guns in baggage (I believe; since I was only patially
attending, I am not necessarily a reliable eyewitness to this). They were
far superior to the fancy security devices that were being monitored by
minimum wage, poorly trained security people.
On a related topic, I remember from an industrial psychology class a
reference to research showing that pigeons were superior at removing flawed
phamaceuticals from an assembly line than were humans. The company did not
implement a pigeon quality review team, though, because of image concerns.
Is there a grain of truth in any of this? I would like to use it as an
example of discrimination learning if I can verify it.
Michael Quanty
Psychology Professor
CBMTS Project Director
Thomas Nelson Community College
P.O. Box 9407
Hampton, Virginia 23670
Voice: 757.825.3500
Fax: 757.825.3807
-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth M. Steele [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, December 03, 1999 8:50 AM
To: TIPS
Subject: Re: Nosing out suspects
On Thu, 02 Dec 1999 23:41:14 -0500 (EST) Stephen Black
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I've often wondered about the scientific accuracy of claims that dogs
> can be used to track people, sniff out drugs, etc. They seem based
> mostly on anecdotal reports. It might be interesting to review the
> literature and see if there was any serious attempt to rule out Clever
> Hans and identification by the handler.
>
> -Stephen
>
Stephen is not the only one to question this capability, as the
following reference attests.
AN: 1992-00446-001
DT: Journal-Article
TI: Testing the individual odour theory of canine olfaction.
AU: Brisbin,-I.-Lehr; Austad,-Steven-N.
SO: Animal-Behaviour. 1991 Jul; Vol 42(1): 63-69
IS: 0003-3472
PY: 1991
AB: Used 3 male dogs trained in human scent discrimination to
evaluate whether the Ss could distinguish the scent of their
handler from the scent of other humans, irrespective of the body
part from which the scent had been collected. Ss were successful
at distinguishing scent obtained from the hand of their handler
from that of the hands of strangers, but could not similarly
distinguish their handler's scent when it was obtained from the
crook of his arm. Results suggest either that there is no such
thing as an individual human odor or that dogs trained with
standard methods do not spontaneously identify individual odor
components of scents taken from different parts of the body.
Results question the practice of using dogs to identify
individuals from scented objects in law enforcement. ((c) 1999
APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved) KP: discrimination of scent
of handler vs other humans taken from different parts of body,
trained male dogs MJ: *Odor-Discrimination
MN: Dogs-
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
> Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
> Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Lennoxville, QC
> J1M 1Z7
> Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
> Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
> http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
----------------------
Kenneth M. Steele [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Associate Professor
Dept. of Psychology
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
