Making inferences about the location of hidden food: Social dog, causal ape.

Bräuer, Juliane; Kaminski, Juliane; Riedel, Julia; Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael

doi:10.1037/0735-7036.120.1.38

Cited by 311 publications

(288 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In addition to human infants, there is another species, the domestic dog (Canis familiaris), that reportedly possess special skills in utilizing ostensive-referential cues (for reviews see Topál et al 2009a;Reid 2009). Dogs during their evolution in an anthropogenic environment (paralleled by the divergence from the wolf) have become selected to show increased sociality Topál et al 2005;Bräuer et al 2006), co-operability and communicability (Hare et al 2002;Virányi et al 2008;Gácsi et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, recent results indicate that dogs have evolved a special preference for a wide range of cues of human ostensive and referential communication (such as eye contact, being verbally addressed, gaze-shift, body orientation and pointing- Bräuer et al 2006;Gácsi et al 2009). While direct eye contact typically functions as a threat cue in most animal species (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why do dogs (Canis familiaris) select the empty container in an observational learning task?

Kupán

Miklósi

Gergely³

et al. 2010

Anim Cogn

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Many argue that dogs show unique susceptibility to human communicative signals that make them suitable for being engaged in complex co-operation with humans. It has also been revealed that socially provided information is particularly effective in influencing the behaviour of dogs even when the human's action demonstration conveys inefficient or mistaken solution of task. It is unclear, however, how the communicative nature of the demonstration context and the presence of the human demonstrator affect the dogs' objectchoice behaviour in observational learning situations. In order to unfold the effects of these factors, 76 adult pet dogs could observe a communicative or a non-communicative demonstration in which the human retrieved a tennis ball from under an opaque container while manipulating another distant and obviously empty (transparent) one. Subjects were then allowed to choose either in the presence of the demonstrator or after she left the room. Results showed a significant main effect of the demonstration context (presence or absence of the human's communicative signals), and we also found some evidence for the responsemodifying effect of the presence of the human demonstrator during the dogs' choice. That is, dogs predominantly chose the baited container, but if the demonstration context was communicative and the human was present during the dogs' choice, subjects' tendency to select the baited container has been reduced. In agreement with the studies showing sensitivity to human's communicative signals in dogs, these findings point to a special form of social influence in observational learning situations when it comes to learning about causally opaque and less efficient (compared to what comes natural to the dog) action demonstrations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do dogs (Canis familiaris) select the empty container in an observational learning task?

Kupán

Miklósi

Gergely³

et al. 2010

Anim Cogn

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“…Other studies (Szetei et al 2003;Bräuer et al 2006) have shown that in particular situations dogs, unlike apes, are more willing to rely on human communicative and behavioural cues to find a reward than on perceptual cues of the physical world or on causal cues. For example, dogs chose the empty container when they received direct perceptual information about the place of the food (subjects were allowed to sniff both containers) and a contradictory communicative cue (human pointed at the empty container; Szetei et al 2003).…”

Section: U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use

et al. 2007

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Three experiments were designed to test whether adult pet dogs are able to show inferential reasoning when searching for their toy in a series of two-way choice tasks. The experimenter placed a toy under one of two identical containers and then provided some information by manipulating the covers: either both containers were lifted or just the empty or baited one. There were other trials when the experimenter not only revealed the corresponding container but manipulated also the other one without showing its content. In the second experiment the same conditions were used except that the content of the containers was revealed by strings without any human manipulation. Results of the two studies show that dogs are able to use inferential reasoning by exclusion (i.e. they can find the hidden toy if they have seen where the toy was missing). However, dogs were able to solve the reasoning task only when they could not rely on social-communicative cues (directional gesture and gaze cues) or could not use any other simple discriminative stimuli (movement of a container) for making decisions. This suggests that dogs are often prevented from showing reasoning abilities by pre-existing biases for social or movement cues. Results of the third experiment also support the primary importance of social cueing because in another object-choice task, individuals preferred to choose the 'socially marked' container (touching, gaze alternation) to the remotely moved one when they had no visual information about the location of the toy. Keywords: cognition; decision by exclusion; deduction; dog; reasoning Despite the wide range of studies based on human and animal cognition published in the past decades, the evolutionary emergence of reasoning abilities including different types of logical reasoning in humans continues to be a puzzle for cognitive science (Wright 2001). The fundamental question is whether an observed problemsolving behaviour is a result of gradual development in performance due to learning processes or is a sudden solution emerging from mental reorganization of problem elements (i.e. insight: Köhler 1925). In distinguishing between learning and reasoning, many assume that even though the more parsimonious learning processes can never be fully excluded (Heyes 1993), reasoning can be presumed if the subject shows an 'insightful solution' immediately (i.e. shows adequate behaviour without explicit training) in the first few trials (Premack 1995).To test for reasoning one may present a problem and provide sufficient but indirect information to solve it. One way to study the reasoning abilities is the Piagetian object permanence paradigm. In the invisible displacement task, no direct cues specify that the desired reward has moved behind the screen (i.e. the subject does not witness the reward being dropped). The subject must infer, upon seeing the empty container, that the object has been transferred. Previous studies with several species showed that some primates (e.g. orang-utans, Pongo pygmaeus: de Blois et al. 1998; o...

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“…These skills have been most extensively studied in dogs (e.g., Wobber & Kaminski, 2011), whose social and communicative abilities show some overlap with those of humans (Bräuer, Kaminski, Riedel, Call, & Tomasello, 2006). Previous findings have suggested that dogs can rely on various types of human directional gestures, such as different types of pointing gestures in an object choice task where at least one limb of the signaler protruded from the body contour (Soproni, Miklósi, Topál, & Csányi, 2002).…”

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confidence: 99%

What or where? The meaning of referential human pointing for dogs (Canis familiaris).

Tauzin¹,

Csík

Kis

et al. 2015

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Dogs have a unique capacity to follow human pointing, and thus it is often assumed that they can comprehend the referential meaning of such signals. However, it is still unclear whether dogs perceive human directional gestures as signals referring to a target object (indicating what to manipulate) or a spatial cue (indicating where to do something). In the present study, we investigated which of these alternative interpretations may explain dogs' responses to human pointing gestures in ostensive communicative and nonostensive cuing contexts. To test whether dogs select the cued object or the cued location, subjects were presented with 2 alternative object-choice trials. An experimenter first attracted the attention of the dog either by calling the dog's name and looking at it (ostensive condition, n ϭ 24) or by clapping the hands (nonostensive condition, n ϭ 24) then pointed at 1 of 2 different toy objects. Subsequently, the experimenter switched the location of the 2 target objects in full view of the dogs by grasping the objects and making a 180°turn. Dogs were then allowed to choose between the 2 objects. In the ostensive condition, dogs showed a significant bias toward the cued location compared with the nonostensive condition in which they performed at chance. These results suggest that pointing refers to a direction or location for dogs, but only if they are addressed with ostensive cues that indicate the communicative intention of the signaler.

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Making inferences about the location of hidden food: Social dog, causal ape.

Cited by 311 publications

References 42 publications

Why do dogs (Canis familiaris) select the empty container in an observational learning task?

Why do dogs (Canis familiaris) select the empty container in an observational learning task?

Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use

What or where? The meaning of referential human pointing for dogs (Canis familiaris).

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