'Virtual Labrador' may help prevent dog bites in future

Researchers in the UK have tested a virtual reality dog that could one day be used as an educational tool to help prevent dog bites.

The virtual reality Labrador known as DAVE (Dog Assisted Virtual Environment) has been tested by researchers at the University of Liverpool to explore if and how humans recognise and interpret signs of dog aggression.

Dog bites are a growing public health concern, with previous research showing that adult hospital admission rates for dog bites tripled in the UK between 1998–2018.

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A better understanding of human-dog behavioral interactions could help researchers tackle this growing problem.

However, research using real dogs is fraught with challenges, which is where DAVE comes in. Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.

"Dog bites are a common public health issue affecting human-dog relationships," said Carri Westgarth, a Senior Lecturer in Human-Animal Interaction at the University of Liverpool.

"Studying human behaviour around a dog performing aggressive behaviours is ethically difficult, for the sake of the risk to the person but also, we don't want to be deliberately making dogs unhappy. A virtual dog solves these problems," Westgarth said.

The researchers recruited sixteen adults for a practical pilot study to explore a virtual indoor living room with the virtual reality dog model allocated in the opposite corner of the room.

The dog model was based on the popular family-favorite Labrador breed.

The team asked participants if they recognised and understood the signs of aggressive behaviors displayed by the virtual dog, including licking its lips, yawning, front paw lifting, backing away, barking, growling, and showing of teeth.

These behaviors are referenced from the "Canine Ladder of Aggression" which shows how a dog may behave when it is uncomfortable and does not want to be approached, the researchers said.

They also assessed participant proximity to the dog using VR head and hand tracking. Participants behaved and interacted with the model in a manner that might be expected with a live dog.

However, three participants got close enough to the aggressive virtual dog to get bitten. The study found little evidence of simulator sickness and indicated that the participants perceived the dog as realistic.

"This is a novel pilot study which overcomes the challenges associated with assessing human behaviour around real dogs displaying aggressive behaviour," Ph.D. student James Oxley said.

"Our findings highlight the potential that the virtual reality model has to help us better understand human behaviour in the presence of dogs and our interpretation of dog behavior," Oxley said.

The researchers also suggest that the virtual reality dog could be developed for use in other areas of behavioral research, such as educational dog safety lessons and in the treatment of dog phobias.