Canine-Assisted Interviews Bolster Informativeness for Negative Autobiographical Memories

Abstract

Humans and animals share a unique bond. Professionals are capitalizing on the human–animal bond by incorporating animals into therapy, forensic interviews, and the courtroom. However, the mnemonic consequence for including dogs in forensic interviews has not been empirically evaluated. In the current study, we examined whether the use of dogs increases the quantity of verbal reports for emotional events. Undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to dog or no dog conditions. Participants were interviewed about positive experienced events and negative experienced events. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed for quantity of new information. Participants shared more new information in negative event reports with a dog present than with no dog present. There were no significant differences in the quantity of information disclosed for positive event memories between dog conditions. Canine-assisted interviews may provide comfort to people, resulting in more elaborative autobiographical reports about negative stressful events.

Animal-Assisted Interventions Improve Mental, But Not Cognitive or Physiological Health Outcomes of Higher Education Students: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…After the full text screening, 32 articles remained for inclusion in this systematic review. Of these 32 articles, three reported two separate eligible studies (Crump & Derting, 2015 ; Gee et al, 2019 ; Trammell, 2017 ), bringing the total of individual studies included in this review to 35 (Banks et al, 2018 ; Barker et al, 2016 , 2017 ; Binfet, 2017 ; Capparelli et al, 2020 ; Charnetski et al, 2004 ; Crossman et al, 2015 ; Crump & Derting, 2015 ; Fiocco & Hunse, 2017 ; Gebhart et al, 2020 ; Gee et al, 2014 , 2015 , 2019 ; González-Ramírez et al, 2016 ; Grajfoner et al, 2017 ; Hall, 2018 ; Hunt & Chizkov, 2014 ; Kobayashi et al, 2017 ; McDonald et al, 2017 ; Pendry et al, 2018 , 2020 ; Pendry et al, 2019a ; Pendry, Vandagriff, et al, 2019 ; Pendry & Vandagriff, 2019 ; Polheber & Matchock, 2014 ; Shearer et al, 2016 ; Stewart & Strickland, 2013 ; Straatman et al, 1997 ; Trammell, 2017 , 2019 ; Ward-Griffin et al, 2018 ; Wilson, 1987 ). Common reasons for exclusion can be found in the PRISMA flow chart (Fig.…”

Animals in higher education settings: Do animal-assisted interventions improve mental and cognitive health outcomes of students? A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Outcomes were grouped into mental health outcomes, physiological outcomes and cognitive outcomes. Mental health outcomes were by far the most common (n=26) [43– 45,48,49,51–55,57,59,62–68,70,72–74], followed by physiological outcomes (n=14) [43,45,47,50,51,54,58,60,62,65,67,70,71,74] and cognitive outcomes (n=9) [44,46,47,53,56,58,61,63,69]. Most reported cognitive outcomes were related to students’ academic performance.…”

“…Thirty studies were included in the quality assessment. Overall, 60 outcomes from 27 studies were classed as “some concerns” [43–45,47,48,51–54,56–58,60,62–68,70,71,73,74], 8 outcomes from 5 studies were classed as “high risk” [49,51,59,62,72], and no studies were classed as “low risk”. Common limitations included not reporting the method of allocation sequence generation or allocation sequence concealment.…”

“…In studies with active interventions, the animal-to-participant ratio was generally 1:3-5 participants. The remaining studies (n=8) [47][48][49]51,56,58,63,70] used passive intervention conditions that mostly took place in individual settings and included a stressor. In studies with passive interventions, the animal-to-participant ratio was generally 1:1.…”

“…In studies with passive interventions, the animal-to-participant ratio was generally 1:1. The most common control condition was a no-treatment control condition (n=27) [43,45,[48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][62][63][64][65][66][67][69][70][71][72]. In most studies (n=28), intervention sessions took place only once per participant [43,[43][44][45]45,47,48,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]60,[64][65][66]68,[70][71][72]…”