HRV as an Index of Impulse Control in Dogs: Experiment 2

In this experiment, dogs were either cued to lie-down in front of a brick for 10 minutes (Interesting condition) or to lie-down in front of a brick (Uninteresting condition) while their cardiac activity was measured. Each test session consisted of three phases. First, the dog was placed in the car cage and a 20 min baseline measurement was collected. After this baseline measurement, the dogs were taken out of the car and led to a place in which they had to lie down in front of either a toy (i.e., Interesting condition) or a brick (Uninteresting condition) for 10 minutes. After the experimental phase, another measurement was taken in the car cage in order to measure cardiac activity during recovery. De dataset shows the data for every individual in every phase and condition. IBI’s were exported as text files with the Polar® software Polar Protrainer 5, and artifacts in the data were visually detected and deleted with the ARTiiFACT software (Version 2.09; Kaufmann, Sütterlin, Schulz, & Vögele, 2011). In accordance with the literature, five minutes of each phase were used to calculate HRV. Of the baseline phase, the last five minutes were analyzed. This allowed us to eliminate the stress-effects of beginning the experiment and of putting the polar strap around the chest of the dog. Of these five minutes, the last 30 seconds were removed to account for approaching the car and opening the trunk during that timeframe. Of the manipulation and recovery phase, the middle five minutes were analyzed in order to eliminate noise in the data caused by the handler’s presence when leaving or approaching the dog at the beginning and end.

本实验中，研究人员提示狗狗在指定刺激物前趴下：其中一组需在玩具前保持趴下状态10分钟（有趣条件组），另一组仅需在砖块前趴下（无趣条件组），期间同步测量其心脏活动。
单次测试流程包含三个阶段：首先将狗狗安置于车载笼中，采集20分钟的基线测量数据；基线采集结束后，将狗狗带离车载笼，引导至指定区域，使其在玩具（即有趣条件组）或砖块（即无趣条件组）前趴下10分钟；实验操作阶段结束后，再次将狗狗安置回车载笼中，采集恢复阶段的心脏活动数据。
本数据集包含所有受试个体在各阶段、各条件下的全部原始数据。
心搏间期（Interbeat Interval，IBI）通过博能（Polar®）软件Polar Protrainer 5导出为文本文件，数据中的伪迹通过ARTiiFACT软件（版本2.09；Kaufmann、Sütterlin、Schulz与Vögele，2011）人工视觉检测并予以剔除。
依据已有研究文献，我们选取每个阶段的5分钟数据用于计算心率变异性（Heart Rate Variability，HRV）：对于基线阶段，选取其最后5分钟进行分析，以消除实验启动及佩戴博能胸带时产生的应激影响；该5分钟数据中，最后30秒予以剔除，以排除该时段内靠近车辆及开启后备箱带来的干扰。对于实验操作与恢复阶段，则选取其中间5分钟进行分析，以消除实验人员在阶段始末靠近或离开狗狗时产生的噪声干扰。