Deceptive-like behaviour in dogs (Canis familiaris)

Abstract

Deception, the use of false signals to modify the behaviour of the receiver, occurs in low frequencies even in stable signalling systems. For example, it can be advantageous for subordinate individuals to deceive in competitive situations. We investigated in a three-way choice task whether dogs are able to mislead a human competitor, i.e. if they are capable of tactical deception. During training, dogs experienced the role of their owner, as always being cooperative, and two unfamiliar humans, one acting 'cooperatively' by giving food and the other being 'competitive' and keeping the food for themselves. During the test, the dog had the options to lead one of these partners to one of the three potential food locations: one contained a favoured food item, the other a non-preferred food item and the third remained empty. After having led one of the partners, the dog always had the possibility of leading its cooperative owner to one of the food locations. Therefore, a dog would have a direct benefit from misleading the competitive partner since it would then get another chance to receive the preferred food from the owner. On the first test day, the dogs led the cooperative partner to the preferred food box more often than expected by chance and more often than the competitive partner. On the second day, they even led the competitive partner less often to the preferred food than expected by chance and more often to the empty box than the cooperative partner. These results show that dogs distinguished between the cooperative and the competitive partner, and indicate the flexibility of dogs to adjust their behaviour and that they are able to use tactical deception.

What’s the point? Domestic dogs’ sensitivity to the accuracy of human informants

“…This added component of reasoning about deceptive intentions of an unhelpful informant is known to be a much harder theory of mind task than the knowledge-based tasks that both dogs and children succeed at (Shafto et al 2012 ). Intriguingly, there is some suggestive evidence that dogs may succeed at reasoning about deception, which may aid them in our task (Heberlein et al 2017 ). Nonetheless, dogs were at a disadvantage in our task when compared to children as, unlike in the work in children, we were unable to give the dogs verbal information about the accuracy of the informants in advance or provide context about what is expected of them by verbally describing the choice task.…”

In what sense are dogs special? Canine cognition in comparative context

“…With regard to deception, dogs can also learn to respond differently to humans who habitually deceive them about the location of food, compared with truthful humans (Petter, Musolino, Roberts, & Cole, 2009), though this is effectively an operant discrimination task rather than requiring any special social cognition. Dogs themselves may engage in deception in play (Mitchell & Thompson, 1993), and they can learn to lead a human who will not share food with them away from the food source (Heberlein, Manser, & Turner, 2017), though this result can again be interpreted as differential conditioning, without the necessity of possessing a theory of mind.…”

Asking for help: Do dogs take into account prior experiences with people?

“…These results suggest that dogs could accomplish some form of social categorization in order to select potential cooperators to ask for their help, taking into account behavioral characteristics similar to their owner. Furthermore, Heberlein, Manser, and Turner (2017) found that dogs indicated the location of hidden food more often to a person who had cooperated with them compared with someone who had been competitive. This study was not an unsolvable task but rather one of showing-a kind of task in which the animal watches food being hidden while a person is outside the room.…”