Correction: Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills

Abstract

Background:The comparison of human related communication skills of socialized canids may help to understand the evolution and the epigenesis of gesture comprehension in humans. To reconcile previously contradicting views on the origin of dogs' outstanding performance in utilizing human gestures, we suggest that dog-wolf differences should be studied in a more complex way.Methodology/Principal Findings: We present data both on the performance and the behaviour of dogs and wolves of different ages in a two-way object choice test. Characteristic behavioural differences showed that for wolves it took longer to establish eye contact with the pointing experimenter, they struggled more with the handler, and pups also bit her more before focusing on the human's signal. The performance of similarly hand-reared 8-week-old dogs and wolves did not differ in utilizing the simpler proximal momentary pointing. However, when tested with the distal momentary pointing, 4-monthold pet dogs outperformed the same aged hand reared wolves. Thus early and intensive socialisation does not diminish differences between young dogs and wolves in behaviour and performance. Socialised adult wolves performed similarly well as dogs in this task without pretraining. The success of adult wolves was accompanied with increased willingness to cooperate.Conclusion/Significance: Thus, we provide evidence for the first time that socialised adult wolves are as successful in relying on distal momentary pointing as adult pet dogs. However, the delayed emergence of utilising human distal momentary pointing in wolves shows that these wild canines react to a lesser degree to intensive socialisation in contrast to dogs, which are able to control agonistic behaviours and inhibition of actions in a food related task early in development. We suggest a ''synergistic'' hypothesis, claiming that positive feedback processes (both evolutionary and epigenetic) have increased the readiness of dogs to attend to humans, providing the basis for dog-human communication.

Long-Term Socialization with Humans Affects Human-Directed Behavior in Goats

“…Furthermore, a study on free-ranging dogs underlined the importance of learning from ontogenetic experience in the use of the human pointing gesture [20]. Certainly, genetic and ontogenetic contributions are both important factors underpinning the socio-cognitive skills in dogs [21,22], but their relative weight remains to be determined.…”

Leash walking as a model for cooperation between humans and wolves: the effects of personality and intensity of contact

“…By the mere chance of doing reasonably coordinated leash walks, it is shown that socialized wolves are capable of cooperating with humans. As already mentioned above socialized wolves even understand the meaning of human pointing gestures (Udell et al, 2008;Virányi et al, 2008;Gácsi et al, 2009) which is related to communicative skills between humans and wolves.…”

“…Studies on human-dog cooperation are rare and most of them investigate communicative skills with humans. Comparative research shows that dogs as well as socialized wolves understand the meaning of human pointing gestures (Soproni et al, 2002;Udell et al, 2008;Virányi et al, 2008;Gácsi et al, 2009). Naderi et al (2001) observed the cooperative behavior between blind people and their guide dogs and discovered that during a walk the initiation of actions alternates continuously and that there are qualitative similarities in pet dogs leading their blindfolded owners.…”

“…In order to investigate wolves' cognitive skills, they are often asked to cooperate with humans during diverse experiments. Kubinyi et al (2007) describes differences in handling socialized wolves and dogs during experimental tasks and observed that wolves struggle more than dogs (see also Gácsi et al, 2009). When cooperating with unknown people, even intensive socialized wolves have difficulties (Kubinyi et al, 2007).…”

Pawsitive selection : Genetics of dog-human communication

“…Furthermore, dogs, but not wolves, use mutual gazing as a mean of communication with humans (Nagasawa et al 2015). Generally, even fully socialised wolves do not seek as much human attention as dogs do (Gacsi et al 2009). This is evident already at an early age (Gacsi et al 2005).…”