Detection dogs are used at border controls as an antecedent intervention to deter the smuggling of contraband. However, there is little research that has explored how the presence of dogs might affect passenger behavior. We observed passengers' behavior at a port when there was an officer alone, an officer with a dog, and an officer with a dog wearing a florescent yellow jacket with “police” written on it for increased salience. We measured eye contact, vocal‐verbal interactions, facial expressions, and nonvocal verbal gestures toward the officer and dog, and changes in passenger direction. Passengers looked, talked, and had the highest frequencies of positive facial expressions when the dog was not wearing a jacket. However, passengers looked toward the dog the quickest and had the highest frequency of negative facial expressions and gestures when the dog was wearing a jacket. We discuss how these findings might inform antecedent interventions to address undesirable behavior such as smuggling.

The design of care settings for people with dementia is often guided by expert opinion rather than empirical data. We evaluated the effect of arranging lounge furniture in different configurations on communication, engagement with activities, and indices of happiness in people with dementia. We found that the common configuration of chairs placed around the outside of the room resulted in the least of all 3 behaviors. Communication occurred most when the furniture was arranged in groups, and engagement occurred most when the furniture layout maximized the salience of available activities.

Simple instructions are often recommended for presenting demands to people with dementia; however, simple instructions may be perceived as authoritative and may not be appropriate for all individuals. We conducted a demand assessment with a woman with dementia who engaged in problem behaviors in response to direct instructions. We measured latency to compliance and verbal behavior when demands were presented as questions, rules, simple instructions, or demands embedded in social chatter. In contrast to the other conditions, simple instructions resulted in the most undesirable behavior and were least likely to evoke compliance. We conducted an intervention in which demands were phrased as requests for assistance.