{"id":5160,"date":"2011-02-06T09:52:12","date_gmt":"2011-02-05T11:44:50","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T11:44:50","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=5160","title":{"rendered":"UC Davis: “Explosive- and drug-sniffing dogs\u2019 performance is affected by their handlers\u2019 beliefs”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Explosive- and drug-sniffing dogs\u2019 performance is affected by their handlers\u2019 beliefs \/ UC Davis study finds detection dogs may exhibit the \u201cClever Hans\u201d effect<\/a> from the UC Davis Health System (Feb. 1, 2011):<\/p>\n

The performance of drug- and explosives-sniffing dog\/handler teams is affected by human handlers\u2019 beliefs, possibly in response to subtle, unintentional handler cues, a study by researchers at UC Davis has found. <\/p>\n

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog\/handler teams erroneously \u201calerted,\u201d or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times \u2014 particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t just about how sensitive a dog\u2019s nose is or how well-trained a dog is. There are cognitive factors affecting the interaction between a dog and a handler that can impact the dog\u2019s performance,\u201d said Lisa Lit, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology and the study\u2019s lead author.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese might be as important \u2014 or even more important \u2014 than the sensitivity of a dog\u2019s nose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, is Illinois v. Caballes<\/a> based on a wrong premises such that it should be overruled? <\/p>\n

See Drug WarRant<\/a>, which gets a hat tip for this post. Update:<\/strong> Caballes talks of the \u201cwell trained dog,\u201d but cases have largely ignored that concept with a \u201cclose enough for government work\u201d mantra. I don\u2019t think this study even gives \u201clegs\u201d to that concept since it means nothing in the case. Can the defense bar give it meaning?<\/p>\n

Another update:<\/strong> This is an article cited inside the Davis article brought to my attention by a reader in Wisconsin: Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes<\/a> by Lisa Lit, Julie B. Schweitzer, Anita M. Oberbauer in Animal Cognition published January 12, 2011. I didn’t check on it; he did. Good catch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}